


love breathe easy (i'll be your antihistamine)

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Fae & Fairies, M/M, Magic, Pining, Supernatural Elements, andreas turning denying his feelings into an olympic sport, mentions of and allusions to terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 04:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16967961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: “Radiation poisoning,” Andreas says. His voice comes out… very shrill. He clears his throat. “Tyler, you thought playing hockey introll Chernobylwas a good idea?”“Troll Chernobyl would be a dope band name,” Tyler says thoughtfully.“Tyler,” Andreas manages. He still sounds very shrill.





	love breathe easy (i'll be your antihistamine)

**Author's Note:**

> with apologies once again to ryan nugent-hopkins. i’d like to thank moliver for inspiring, aiding, abetting, and supporting me in my journey towards accepting tyler bertuzzi into my heart, and also for being the best beta. 
> 
> from the bottom of my heart let me be the first to say: the wings are good this year
> 
> enjoy  
> xoxo

Andreas isn't all that close with Tyler Bertuzzi. Not any closer than he is with any of the other dudes that came up through the Griffins, anyway. He's always been aware of him but he'd challenge anyone not to be, with the way Tyler is. 

He’s never really hung out with him one on one though, and so it takes him a little bit by surprise when he goes to slap five with him and it nearly puts Tyler through a wall in a flash of light. 

That’s the excuse he’s going with, anyway. 

“Jesus fucking shit,” Tyler spits at him, crumpled against the baseboard with his hat askew and a comically stunned expression. Andreas looks down at him and then around the hallway somehow deserted of anyone else, then back down at the stupid necklace his mom gave him over the summer, _for luck_ , whatever that means. 

It’s glowing. 

Apparently ‘luck’ actually means magical super strength to punch his teammates into walls when he goes in for a high five. 

“Uh,” he says, which he feels is an appropriately measured reaction to the whole situation. 

“What the _fuck_ are you doing with that?” Tyler demands. Which, possibly fair, but. 

“Fuck off,” Andreas says automatically. He hasn’t quite processed that whole glowing magical necklace thing. “My mom gave me this.” 

“Why the fuck would you be wearing that, anyway,” Tyler snaps and hauls himself to his feet. His hat is still askew. “You knew I was going to be here. Prick.” 

“Why would I be wearing a necklace?” Andreas asks blankly. “Wait, why would it matter if _you’re_ here.” 

Tyler eyes him. His hair is a typical mess and his hat is hanging on by an ear and his whole ridiculous face is just, a lot to deal with. He looks a little like an electrocuted cat. 

“You’re not wearing that because of me?” he asks after a beat. 

“Why would I?” Andreas demands. “I don’t even know what the fuck this is!” 

Tyler pauses. 

“There’s no way I can get you to forget about any of this, is there,” he says at last, sounding distinctly caught out. He still hasn’t fixed his hat. Andreas has the stupidest impulse to do it for him. 

“No,” he says.

-/-

“So you’re telling me,” Andreas says slowly when they’ve finally found a supply closet Tyler deems suitable for discussing… magic? Holy shit. “You’re telling me my mom gave me a magic necklace that she like, made herself, to protect me from… evil spirits?”

“That’s what I just said,” Tyler says and rolls his eyes. 

“No,” Andreas says. “What you just said was ‘your mom decked you out in some custom heavy-duty shit, _fer sher_.’”

“It’s what I _meant_ ,” Tyler says mildly. “Don’t need to bitch about it just ‘cuz you’re upset.” 

“So it keeps off evil spirits,” Andreas says, ignoring that and lifting the little charm up to eye it. It just looks like an intricate little knot of copper wire and a little crystal of some kind. Some serious hippy Etsy shit. It… looks kinda kitschy, actually, now that it’s stopped glowing. 

“Well, kinda,” Tyler shrugs. He doesn’t look as bothered by this as Andreas wishes he did. He’s already pretty sick of being the only uncomfortable one in this situation, especially since _he_ hadn’t been the one to get knocked into a wall. “Non-humans. S’not a specific spell, I don’t think.” 

“Non-humans,” Andreas echoes. “And you?” 

Tyler suddenly can’t meet his eyes. 

“Oh,” Andreas says. 

“Yeah,” Tyler says. 

“Oh, so you're not-,” Andreas begins. 

“Not human, no,” Tyler says. “Or, like, mostly.” 

“Oh,” Andreas says. 

There’s a very, very long pause. Andreas is not sure if he’s breathing or not. He feels a little lightheaded, like maybe he needs to go see the trainers for a nice little lie-down.

“Troll,” Tyler says helpfully. “And then, uh, whatever is on my mom's side. She won't say.”

“Oh,” Andreas says again. He's starting to annoy himself with the repetition. 

Tyler shrugs. 

“So that's why you look like that?” Andreas asks before he can really stop himself and promptly wishes abjectly he knew how to do magic, so he could open a hole under himself to fall into. _So that's why you look like that?_ Jesus fucking Christ. 

Tyler blinks at him. He doesn't look offended, luckily, just puzzled. 

“Like what?” he asks. 

Andreas spends a frantic moment searching for something to say that won't be a lie or wildly offensive. Or ‘usually pretty bizarre in an unsettling kind of way but occasionally in some lights-’ which… he doesn't want to follow that thought to its conclusion, much less say it out loud. 

“You just have an interesting face, bro,” he settles on. Tyler digests that for a while. 

“I can work with that,” he says at last and flashes an absolutely brilliant smile and ambles out of the closet while Andreas is still groping after literally anything safe to say out loud.

-/-

It turns out that discovering magic is no excuse for being late to practice.

Which, Andreas reflects exhaustedly when Blashill finally lets him crawl off the ice from the bag skates, is obscurely reassuring. He might have a friend that's a magical creature but he also has two sore fucking calves and an appetite that's approaching the cannibalistic, and Tyler's whole business seems significantly less pressing in light of that. 

“Keep on keeping on,” Larkin says genially, and Andreas heroically doesn’t punch him in his stupid nose, and it’s almost possible to forget Tyler entirely. 

He gets home and looks at himself in the bathroom mirror, and then down at the little charm hanging around his neck. He doesn’t bother thinking about it too much when he undoes the chain and leaves it on the table by the door.

-/-

Andreas isn’t _new_. He’s met NHLers before. He’s met a fucking lot of them.

It’s a little bit different, trying to get up the courage to just walk up to Zetterberg and ask him for advice on breakaways. 

He gets about halfway through the sentence, and hasn’t stuttered once, when Hank starts grinning. He looks pleased, and he looks human, and Andreas tries not to let himself dip into hero worship too much but like… really. It’s been like a year since he first met Hank and he’s still an absolute mess about it. 

“Want to stay for some practice?” Hank asks, that soft accent Andreas has heard on TV - he’s gonna stop being a loser over this any second now, he swears. There are other people in the locker room probably, he’s peripherally aware of them, but none of them are probably important at all. 

“Oh, fuck yeah,” he says. Like, what else is he supposed to say. Hank laughs at him but it’s friendly laughter. 

And then Hank pastes him against the boards like twenty times but Andreas comes away from it feeling like a hundred-dollar bill. A slightly tattered one, but a hundred bucks anyway and so, in the end, he thinks he’s coming out on top.

-/-

They win some hockey games. He’s probably never, ever going to get sick of that.

He’s a _Detroit Red Wing_. It’s kind of a lot, still.

-/-

Practice on top of real, regular NHL games turns out to also be kind of a lot. Andreas can handle it, but still. A lot.

So, he’s a little slow getting out of his pads and it leaves him sitting on the bench working his legs into his pants when half the team’s already out the door. He’s tired as fuck, kind of drifting in it a little. He’s not alone at least, Tyler’s still wandering around looking affable and alien. Andreas watches him for a second and thinks vaguely incoherent things about his face and has to look down fast when Tyler looks his way. 

The second time, Andreas is looking at Tyler and wondering if his weird nose is because he’s a troll or because it got broken in Juniors. Juniors seems more likely, but at the same time- 

Tyler waggles his eyebrows and Andreas refuses to blush but he does look away quickly. 

Tyler catches him looking the third time and grins, sidles over on the bench. He’s sprawled out and he looks so goofy when he smiles like that. 

“You look like you’re trying not to piss yourself,” he observes with the delicacy of a loving forecheck. “Just ask whatever you’re gonna ask, man.” 

“Disgusting,” Andreas complains. Tyler shrugs unrepentantly. They’re mostly alone in the room now, as people trail out. Tyler’s hair has almost dripped dry already. It’s kind of curly, when he hasn’t been sleeping on it. 

“You love me,” he says peaceably. Andreas makes a face. 

“Uh huh,” he says unwillingly, because he’s not ready to address that at all in any way. “Just… whatever. So, um, trolls.” 

“So, um, yeah,” Tyler mimics him. He’s grinning wider and wider. Andreas makes his face even harder and drums his palms on the bench. “Yeah, what about us?” 

“You said there’s things… other than trolls?” Andreas asks. He’s trying to be delicate and he’s pretty sure it’s not working. He’s also pretty sure Tyler won’t care much, but on principle he’s still doing his best. “Are there a lot of you in the league?” 

“I don’t think we’re super common,” Tyler says and shrugs. Andreas is reminded all over again how lucky he is that Tyler is pretty much terminally chill, because he can’t imagine not being able to ask all his dumbass questions. “But obviously we’re, like, here.” 

“Is anyone else on the team?” Andreas asks and Tyler frowns at him. 

“I don’t know,” he says, sounding vaguely offended. “It’d be rude to ask, y’know? Like what am I supposed to say, ‘hey dude, are you human?’ I don’t need that rep.” 

Andreas elects not to respond to that. He’s too busy running down the roster in his head, then the Griffins roster too. It’s hard to say. He’s still not sure how much of Tyler’s whole everything is because he’s part troll and how much of it is just _him._

“It’s gotta be, like… Kronner, right?” he asks at last. 

Tyler wrinkles his nose. 

“I mean,” he says at last. “You know… I wonder. I don’t know. But maybe.”

-/-

“Gretzky,” Andreas tries, later on.

“Maybe,” Tyler says and knocks the puck off Andreas’s stick. “Probably not. Getcha head in the fucking game, Double A.”

“Whoever let you watch that movie made a fucking mistake, Bertuzzi,” Andreas calls after him, but Tyler just laughs at him over his shoulder and fires a shot on Howard that nips top shelf clean as a whistle.

-/-

“Crosby or Malkin,” Andreas decides. “One or the other, it can't be both.”

“Neither,” Tyler grunts. He's halfway through a set of crunches and Andreas is shirking his own to sit around next to him and wonder idly if Tyler's weird mouth is genetic. “Letang.” 

Andreas frowns, distracted from Tyler's mouth as Tyler gets heavily to his feet. 

“You're joking,” he says and then, scrambling to his feet as Tyler walks away without answering, “Tuzzi! You're joking, right?”

-/-

“Alright,” Andreas says, and settles into the seat next to Tyler. “One more, c'mon.”

Tyler rolls his eyes. 

“Fine, whatever,” he says tolerantly. “I really don't know jack shit, y'know.” 

“McDavid,” Andreas says, ignoring him. “No way that guy's human.” 

Tyler bursts out laughing. 

They're taxiing for takeoff and the plane is quiet. Late night flight straight from a dirty, unpleasant OT win they barely scraped together. Andreas can feel the exhaustion aching in his shoulders and the soles of his feet. There's fatigue carving the bags under Tyler's eyes even deeper. But it's- it's nice. Having made Tyler laugh feels nice. 

“No,” Tyler answers in an undertone. “Nah, he's human as you are.” 

“Wouldn't go that far,” Andreas mutters and shakes his head when Tyler laughs again. It's a weird honking little laugh. Kind of endearing. “But, like, you're _sure?_ He just like… looks like that.”

“Brah, that's just what Edmonton does to ya,” Tyler says, and Andreas extends a fist for a bump because Jesus, cheers to that for _real_.

-/-

One of the good things about Sunrise, Florida is that no one gives a shit about hockey. One of the really good things about Sunrise, Florida is that no one gives a shit about the Red Wings, especially. The whole team had walked into the bar they’d chosen to drink themselves into forgetting about the Panthers rolling them over and no one had even looked up.

Andreas suspects they could have walked in wearing full gear, skates and all, and they still wouldn’t have been noteworthy. Proximity to Miami is a hell of a thing. 

Mike goes to grab them a round at the bar because he's historically least likely to get them kicked out of bars for blatantly buying for minors. He comes back with a pitcher, a stack of cups, a rack of bottles, and a sour expression. 

“Bartender says he caught the game,” is all he says and pours himself a glass while Nyquist is still passing the bottles around. Andreas snags a bottle of something that looks expensive and advertises itself as an IPA. He's gonna need to drink to deal with that, too. 

“Coulda copped us a round, if he cared so much,” Tyler mutters. He's got a bottle in hand too and he's already sipping on it like he intends not to remember anything about the whole week.

“I’m too fucking sober for this,” Mike decides and methodically chugs half his beer. 

“First person to bring up that game picks up the tab,” Abdelkader pronounces, thumping the table once for emphasis. Everyone mutters agreement. Andreas stops himself from laying his head on the table, but only just. 

He’s trying not to think about the game, and thinking about it a lot. 

It gets easier not to after the first beer is safely warming his gut and the second is leaving his hand wet and cold. The Swedes - minus Kronwall, who's watching them judgmentally instead, and plus the Czechs so maybe calling them the Swedes is inaccurate - are huddled up together next to him chattering incomprehensibly and trading swigs from the same beer bottle in what he's pretty sure is a drinking game. At least he hopes so. 

Tyler's found his way over next to him on the bench seat, as people shuffle around to go to the bathroom or try to get literally any of the women at the bar to care about the Detroit Red Wings. Andreas fixes his eyes on Big Mo striking out with a tall redhead Andreas could have warned him was astronomically out of his league. It's safer than considering how warm Tyler's thigh is against his. 

“Fuck Keith Yandle,” Tyler mumbles in his ear and Andreas chokes. 

“Oh, Christ,” he gets out, coughing. “Don't let Abby hear you, I know how much you're making this year.”

“Fuck Luongo, too,” Tyler continues, unrepentant. He's grinning wide and unbothered, although at least he's talking even quieter. Andreas ducks his head for another sip of beer. 

Dylan reaches across Tyler to slug Andreas in the shoulder. 

“No secrets,” he says loudly. He's already flushed with the beer, blotchy across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. Sometimes, Andreas can see where Werenski is coming from with Dylan. This isn’t one of those times. “What are you guys whispering about, eh?”

“How much we hate your stupid face,” Andreas says and tries to sound like he means it. Tyler nods along. 

Dylan rolls his eyes at them. 

“You two are so weird,” he complains hypocritically, because everyone fucking knows how he and Werenski are about each other. One of these days Andreas really needs to get his number and start tattling about all the ludicrous bullshit Dylan pulls in his absence. 

“Hey, whatever,” Tyler says in a slow, drawling voice that suggests he’s up to something. “Like, at least I can handle my alcohol, Larkin.” 

Dylan squints at him. 

“You tryna get me into a drinking contest?” he asks. He sounds kind of excited about it. Andreas waits with bated breath. 

“I don’t know,” Tyler says innocently. “I heard you get a few beers in you and you start giving out lapdances.”

“Oh Christ, he _did_ ,” Mike says. “Abby it was your birthday, oh my god, you remember that?” 

“Saddest excuse for a fuckin’ lapdance I ever got,” Abdelkader says genially. “You’re a fucking disgrace, Larkin.” 

“Hey!” Dylan squawks. Andreas is trying desperately not to snort his illicit IPA out of his nose. “Hey, fuck you all, I’m sex on fuckin’ legs!” 

“You’re not my type, Larks,” Tyler assures him. “I’m gonna pass.” 

“I’m everyone’s type!” Larkin declares. He’s splashing his beer everywhere and the bartender is starting to look their way like he’s reconsidering whether the sum of their contracts outweighs how annoying they’re being. Andreas chugs the dregs of his own beer as a precaution. 

Mike facewashes Dylan preemptively. 

“Shut up or you won’t get another,” he advises like a liar because everyone knows Dylan’s secretly his favorite, and the whole table _whoos_. Dylan is still making offended noises, but slightly quieter now. The bartender’s looking away again, and Tyler elbows him. 

“S’nice,” he says under his breath and Andreas nods, trying to smother his grin a little, because he gets it.

-/-

Andreas makes his slow and achy way to the back out of the showers.

He hates losses. He hates OT losses. He hates people saying _a point is a point_ to him like it makes a single bit of difference. He hates the Oilers, especially. Fuck McDavid, and fuck Lucic and Nugent-Hopkins for good measure. 

He rounds the corner into the locker room, and it takes him a second to realize Tyler’s there. He’d taken long enough he’d thought he’d have the locker room mostly to himself, and Tyler’s crumpled at the foot of his stall in a way that makes him difficult to see until Andreas is almost to his own stall. 

He spots Tyler and jumps about a foot in the air. 

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ ,” he spits. Tyler grins at him. 

“Hey, bro,” he says indistinctly. 

The front of his shirt and his face from the cheekbones down is just… _drenched_ in blood. He looks like an extra from a shitty B-list horror movie, except the blood is crimson and browning on his shirt and shockingly, horrifyingly real. It’s only the way that Tyler lifts a limp hand in unconcerned greeting that stops him from shouting for someone to call 911. 

“Is that a _nosebleed?_ ” Andreas demands. His heart is racing and he’s pretty sure he’s an inch from hyperventilating. “Did that all come from your _nose?_ ” 

“Listen, next to that game? This is nothing,” Tyler says casually and flaps a hand dismissively. He sounds just, obnoxiously normal. If Andreas weren't looking right at him, seeing how bloodlessly pale he still is and the streaks of crimson in his teeth, his tone might even fool him. “Don't worry about it.”

Andreas spends a moment just gaping. Tyler’s got his eyes closed in blissful indifference. 

“Can you even walk right now?” he demands when he finally gets his voice back. He is, he discovers, putting his hands on his hips. He suspects he sounds dangerously like his mom. “Is that why you're still sitting there?” 

Tyler's eyes slit open guiltily.

“...Maybe,” he allows. 

There’s so much blood all over his shirt. A lot of blood. Like, Andreas isn’t sure how much blood is too much blood to lose, but it looks like a lot of blood. He wonders hysterically if he should be calling for an ambulance or something. 

“Bro,” he says. 

“Can you grab me a towel?” Tyler asks. He’s gesturing in the direction of his stall and Andreas hands him one of his towels dubiously, watching him mop at his face for a minute. He’s still got a worrying amount of blood down his shirt and all over his face. It’s all dried on and sticky too, he’s not cleaning himself up so much as kind of moving it around on his face. It doesn’t seem to be bothering him much. 

“Are you, like...” Andreas tries when it gets really obvious Tyler’s having more fun with it than making any real effort to make himself look less like a murder victim. “...Gonna be okay?” 

Tyler snorts at him, which is- gruesome. 

“I’m fucking starving,” he says. “Gonna house some Chipotle after I shower this off, for sure.” 

“But like, you’re okay,” Andreas presses. Tyler smiles at him. It’s very sincere, and there’s blood in the cracks of his teeth. 

“I’m fine,” he says. “You can come with, if you wanna burrito. Make sure I don’t bleed out over the guac or whatever the fuck.” 

“Alright, whatever,” Andreas mutters. He does kind of want a burrito.

-/-

Other than being somewhat more pale than usual Tyler looks totally normal, munching on a chicken fajita across the booth at the closest Chipotle. Andreas examines him carefully over his own veggie softrita and if he didn’t already know Tyler had recently lost about two pints of blood he’d have never known.

“I’m fine,” Tyler says when he catches Andreas looking and rolls his eyes, kicking Andreas’s ankle under the table companionably. “Eat your fuckin’ burrito before I do.” 

“Touch my burrito and die,” Andreas warns him. Tyler eyes him for a moment before getting up to order them some chips and guac too. Andreas grins. It’s so nice, going out to get food with people that understand. 

“So,” Andreas says when Tyler's sat back down with him. “What do trolls eat?”

Tyler looks down at his decimated burrito and then up again at him. 

“No, like, weird stuff. Do you eat dirt?” he asks. Tyler wrinkles his nose and takes a bite of chicken. 

“Pretty sure you eat more dirt than I do, bud,” he says and then shrugs. “Um, y'know the whole… bridge troll thing? The fairy tale or whatever?” 

“The goat one?” Andreas asks and steals the guac because Tyler isn't looking. “You eat goat?”

“Uhh,” Tyler says. He's not quite meeting Andreas's eyes. “No, uh… it's a metaphor.” 

It takes Andreas a second before horrified comprehension dawns. 

“ _People?_ ” he asks, a shrill tone he hadn't known he was capable of. 

Tyler winces. 

“Trolls don't _just_ eat, y'know, human,” he says in a placating tone like that makes a single bit of difference at _all_. “They eat other stuff too.” 

“Other stuff,” Andreas repeats. It's still a little shrill. 

“Vegetables,” Tyler says. He doesn't sound very sure of himself. It's not very reassuring. 

“Trolls eat people,” Andreas says, just to check that he has a full grasp on the facts of the matter. 

“Um,” Tyler says. “Sometimes, yeah.”

“That's cool,” Andreas says faintly. He's not sure it is, in fact, cool. 

“I've never eaten anyone,” Tyler says in a reassuring tone. “I eat vegetables.”

“Cool,” Andreas says. He feels like he’s having an out of body experience. “Me too.” 

“Yeah,” Tyler says. “The whole vegan thing.” He's bobbing up and down in place and looking, for once, something close to appropriately uncomfortable. 

“Yeah,” Andreas agrees stupidly and pulls himself together a little. “So you've never, y'know, wanted to?” 

Sometimes he really does wish he had the courage to ask his mom about the whole magic thing. Opening a hole under himself to fall into would be so useful. 

“Have I ever wanted to eat someone?” Tyler asks. He's wrinkling his nose and he doesn't look offended, at least. Mostly kind of amused. “No. Or, well. Not like _that._ ”

It takes a moment for what Tyler’s implying to register and then Andreas is sputtering. 

“ _Bro,_ ” he says, tone distinctly strangled. He's bright red, he can feel how hot his cheeks are. 

Tyler shrugs shamelessly. He's fucking… _leering_. Not like, at Andreas. Just, in general. 

“Eat your fucking burrito,” Andreas says, pretending he’s not blushing so hard it can probably be seen from space. He’s not totally sure what exactly it is Tyler really means, and he’s actually a little terrified to ask. Tyler would probably actually explain it to him. Andreas might not survive that. 

Tyler buckles down to his burrito with gusto, which is probably good. There’s nothing sexy about hockey players eating, and especially not if that hockey player is Tyler Bertuzzi.

-/-

Games versus the Avalanche are incredibly fucking unpleasant, Andreas is discovering. It probably would have been better if they were winning but they lose, in a drawn-out overtime period Andreas is pretty sure he’s going to be thinking about for weeks. It’s like watching the dog die in Marley & Me.

Tyler isn’t there to see it, on account of being ejected for trying to fight the Avs entire first line after Kerfoot checked him to the ice. Andreas kind of envies him.

-/-

Tyler’s in his stall, elbows braced on his knees when Andreas is finally allowed back into the locker room. He looks like his shit’s been rocked like a proverbial hurricane and Andreas frowns, because he’d been about ten feet from the crosscheck when it’d happened. Tyler had hit the ice, but Andreas has skated off worse himself and Tyler’s a fucking wall.

Tyler squints up at him when he walks over. He looks mostly okay. The trainers hadn’t put him on concussion protocol, Andreas reminds himself. Tyler’s fine. 

“Are you okay?” Andreas asks, gingerly patting Tyler's shoulder. “I've seen you take harder punches and not even look, a crosscheck from _Kerfoot_ makes you eat ice?”

Tyler rolls his eyes. He's flushed like he'd just run a marathon, hair sticking to his sweaty cheeks. It's a feverish, unhealthy-looking flush and Andreas frowns at it. 

“I fight for you and you bitch about it,” Tyler says. He sounds normal, whatever’s going on. He actually sounds better off than any of the rest of them probably do. Probably because he wasn’t there for the absolute disgrace that was the last third of the game. “I didn’t break a leg or anything, calm down.” 

“Oh my god, Tuzzi,” Andreas says, aggrieved. “You didn’t fight for _me_.” 

Tyler grins at him unrepentantly. Andreas notes his impending headache. 

“That’s what you think, huh?” he asks cheerfully and is out of his stall and ambling for the showers before Andreas can come up with any kind of coherent response. “Hurry up, s’get out of here before media time.”

He’s pretty flushed himself, Andreas discovers when he goes back to his own stall.

-/-

Everyone is kind of trying to talk around the Hank _thing_.

Andreas has never been so happy to be kind of a background player sometimes, because at least no one wants to talk to him about it. Dylan isn’t so lucky. The media catch him after every practice Hank doesn’t skate in to ask him about it. 

Andreas would feel bad for making fun of him for it but then, he knows Dylan so he doesn’t feel bad at all. 

“Maintenance day,” Dylan’s saying cheerfully. He doesn’t look sick of saying it yet and he’s somehow managed to keep all the worry off his face too. Andreas has no idea how he does it. He can barely string five words together with a camera in his face even when he hasn’t skated a whole practice. 

Tyler nudges him with his elbow. 

“Fuckin’ beauty with the media, isn’t he,” he says in an undertone. He’s got his hat perched on his head even though he’s not wearing anything other than his boxers because he’s ridiculous and also apparently out to ruin Andreas's blood pressure. Andreas stares fixedly at Dylan. 

“Don’t tell him you said that,” he says and clears his throat. “S’cuz his face is so, y’know, like that.” 

“He’s got a momma’s boy face, for sure,” Tyler agrees. He’s working a shirt on over his head, hat and all. Andreas despairs but at least now he can look at Tyler without wanting to die. “Media loves it.” 

No more than the average amount, anyway. 

Dylan finally manages to break away from the media and beelines straight for them. He’s shaking his shoulders out and making a face Andreas would love to end up on ESPN, although he sympathizes about the media. 

“Larkin on your six,” he jokes and watches Tyler squash a grin, schooling his face into something a little more serious. Dylan jostles between them jovially. 

“Shoulda known, my dickhead senses were tingling,” Tyler says thoughtfully. Dylan hits him with his glove. He’s still wearing his sweaty pads and his glove smells like utter and complete ass, Andreas can tell from here. Tyler elbows Dylan viciously back, right in the ribs, and Dylan winces but accepts it as his due. 

“Fuck off,” he says affably. “I want a burrito, invite me along on your weird Chipotle date.” 

“No,” Tyler says, at the same time Andreas says, “They’re not _dates._ ”

Dylan follows them out to Tyler’s car anyway and like, it’s easier to let him climb in the backseat and talk about faceoff percentages than try to kick him out.

-/-

Andreas orders for Tyler while he grabs them a table and avoids Dylan's eyes. It's not a date, and Dylan is just being an instigator. Andreas can hardly help that he knows Tyler's order by heart after eating together so many times.

“Hey, thanks,” Tyler says when Andreas sits down and shoves his burrito and extra chips across to him, smiling brilliantly. Andreas avoids looking at the way Dylan waggles his eyebrows at him. Dylan's absolutely not getting any of the extra guac Andreas also ordered because Tyler always forgets he wants some, Andreas resolves. 

At least Dylan doesn’t say anything. They’re all too hungry for that, after a hard practice. There’s a good ten minutes of blessed silence before Dylan kicks him under the table to get his attention. 

“You want a bite?” he asks idly and waves his burrito at Andreas. It’s oozing queso and it’s all beans but like, _queso_. Andreas stares at him. It really doesn’t look like Dylan’s joking. Tyler makes a noise that sounds exactly like the noise he’d make if he tried to laugh and accidentally inhaled some chicken and started choking. 

“Uh, thanks, man,” he says after a beat. “But, uh, I can’t. S’got cheese.” 

“What’s wrong with cheese?” Dylan asks. He looks offended. 

“I’m vegan,” Andreas reminds him valiantly. Tyler’s still choking. 

“Cheese isn’t vegan?” Dylan asks. He sounds legitimately puzzled. Andreas stares at him some more. 

“You thought cheese was vegan?” Tyler asks. His voice comes out kind of strangled. 

“Whatever,” Dylan defends himself. Andreas stares at him some more. He just truly can’t process this. 

“It’s made out of milk,” Tyler says valiantly. “Bro, _I_ know cheese isn’t vegan. Are you like, _okay?_ ” 

“Hey, fuck off,” Dylan says. He’s finally starting to go kind of red. Andreas can’t stop staring at him. “I’m not a vegan, bro, I don’t know shit.” 

“Apparently,” Tyler mumbles and takes a bite out of his burrito just in time for Dylan to kick him viciously under the table. The bite falls back out of his mouth and onto the table as Tyler chokes and jolts to clutch at his shin. It’s fucking disgusting. Andreas still hasn’t stopped staring. 

“S’good I never made food for you, I guess,” Dylan says which is probably the closest he’ll be to admitting he’s a dumbass Andreas will ever get. Tyler swears at him and kicks back. They devolve into a wrestling match that nearly sends Dylan’s burrito to the floor. 

“And you never will,” Andreas mutters and takes a bite out of his softrita because fucking _honestly_.

-/-

It hits Andreas sometimes, how much he's lost his grip on objective reality when it comes to Tyler. Out of nowhere like the Looney Tunes coyote running off a cliff, he’ll be going about his business perfectly unaware and then he’ll look over at Tyler and the freaky line of his jaw and how from some angles he just looks-

Boom. Cartoon dust cloud. Andreas hitting the figurative earth and coming to in the wreckage of his self-respect and ability to act like a normal fucking human being. It’s like clockwork. 

He’d be madder about it, but then Tyler grins at him comfortably like nothing could possibly be wrong and he can’t help smiling back.

-/-

It takes Andreas a second to figure out someone’s puking in the bathroom, because the straps on the pads he’d sort of neglected to take off on his way to the bathroom get caught on the door jamb. Detangling himself takes embarrassingly long so he doesn’t realize someone’s retching loudly until they’ve finished.

The person in the stall apparently notices Andreas rattling the doorknob around at about the same time. A long minute of silence ensues. 

Andreas is just about to try to escape the bathroom and let whoever’s in the stall go about their business without having to deal with being observed when the stall door opens and Tyler nearly topples out of it. 

He’s pasty and a little sweaty at the temples and the bags under his eyes are stark and dark. He stares at Andreas like a deer confronted suddenly with a pair of headlights. Andreas has the distinct feeling he’s making the same face. 

“Um,” Andreas says. “Were you just-?” 

Tyler wrinkles his nose. 

“What do you think?” he asks. It’s not the friendliest tone. “I’m fine, it’s whatever.” 

Andreas blinks at him and doesn’t respond. Eventually Tyler shuffles past him to the sink and spits into it. The bathroom fan is rattling over their heads and it’s so awkward it’s painful. Andreas doesn’t know what to do. 

“Do you ever get nervous?” Tyler asks after a moment, breaking the silence between them. 

He's braced against the sink, head down so when Andreas looks at him in the mirror he can't see what his expression is doing. His shoulders are hunched inwards. His back is a broad, inexpressive curve. 

It's quiet again in the bathroom. 

“...Sometimes,” Andreas whispers and Tyler looks up at him. He's still kind of pasty but he smiles, watery and wry and a little crooked. Andreas smiles back and mostly it’s sincere. “Most of the time.”

“Me too,” Tyler says and finally turns the water on, splashing himself in the face. Andreas leans his hip against the sink and tries to think of something to say. 

“Do you get scared before you fight?” he asks and Tyler barks out a laugh. He’s pink again, collar of his shirt wet, and he’s breaking into a shameless grin. Andreas looks down because, like, it’s just a lot. 

“Nah,” Tyler says. His weird grey eyes are doing something Andreas categorically refuses to describe as _sparkling_ , even in the safety of his own head. “Figure it’s not me that should be scared, y’know?” 

“ _Oh_ my god,” Andreas groans, distracted from his own internal anguish and weird bullshit. “Oh my god, you think you’re so badass, don’t you? That’s what you really think. Oh my _god._ ” 

“I am badass!” Tyler tells him. He’s grinning and Andreas has to elbow him for that, and Tyler shoves him for the door. “Time and place, fucker, let’s go. I’ll take you out.” 

“God,” Andreas says and rolls his eyes and lets himself be bundled out the door. “Whatever, you’re such a shithead.”

-/-

Tyler gets a nosebleed on the ice this time. Andreas is getting a working over from Daley and Jensen in what they claim is an effort to up Andreas's defensive game but he suspects is just an excuse to knock him into the boards multiple times, so he doesn’t see it. He just looks up to see Tyler disappearing into the locker room and the worryingly large spatter of red on the ice.

He turns back to getting his ribs knocked in by Daley. No one looks too alarmed and he’s not going to be the one to freak out. 

Practice is over in twenty minutes anyway, and Tyler’s still in the locker room when he troops off the ice. He’s sitting in his stall down to his undershirt, head tipped back, holding a towel under his nose. It doesn't seem to be helping, judging by the amount of blood soaking through. Tyler looks kind of grey at the edges. 

“Dude, that cannot be fucking sanitary,” Abby says. He sounds more fascinated than disgusted. 

“Fuck off, fucking sanitary,” Tyler says. He doesn't sound very bothered by the way his nasal cavity seems to be springing leaks all over the place. “I've smelled your pads, Abs.”

Abby throws a glove at him. Apparently, he isn’t bothered by the localized Niagara Falls either. 

“You good?” Kronwall asks Tyler kindly. 

“S’all done mostly, slowed down a lot,” Tyler says cheerfully and pulls the towel away from his nose. Blood is still trickling pretty copiously and Andreas kind of doesn’t want to know what the full blast had looked like if this is _slowed down_. There’s so much blood smeared around his nose and mouth he looks like an extra in a shitty vampire movie. “Wrecked a jersey, though.” 

“Could probably sell that online,” Mantha puts in idly. “Where’d you stick it, I could use a twenty.” 

“Like Bert’s worth a twenty,” Martin calls from across the room. Tyler snorts with laughter. Blood goes everywhere. Andreas looks up at the ceiling and appeals to a merciful God.

-/-

“You wanna come visit my family?” Tyler asks brightly.

Andreas blinks at him. Then he looks around the Chipotle. It’s kind of late and pretty deserted. The girl at the register had waved at them when they’d trooped in. Andreas suspects they’re here too much. 

“Uh,” he says. They have a rare three day break and a whole day with no practice or games or even media. He hadn’t really planned anything except sleeping in, but Tyler’s got his hands in his pockets and there’s something a little brittle about his smile Andreas doesn’t know how to begin to decode. “Yeah, sure.” 

“Dope,” Tyler says. He’s already looking away, up at the menu like he’s not going to get the same thing he always gets. “Hey, whatcha getting?”

-/-

“I still don’t get why we’re taking my car,” Andreas complains. Tyler throws his overnight bag into the back and shakes his head at him. He looks like he barely slept the night before, and simultaneously like he just rolled out of bed. It’s a strong look, for sure.

“Because you wanna stop complaining, and also my car sucks,” he says pragmatically, and climbs in the passenger side. “Let me nap on the way there.” 

“I could have driven _your_ car,” Andreas points out just to be a shit. 

“Cry me a river,” Tyler says tartly and buckles his seatbelt pointedly. 

“Don't get a nosebleed in my car,” Andreas warns him and Tyler rolls his eyes at him, aggrieved. 

“S’not like I can control it,” he whines and Andreas slams the door on him. He sticks his tongue out like an asshole idiot at Andreas through the window and Andreas rolls his eyes, walking around to the driver's side. 

Tyler falls asleep almost as soon as they pull into the street and Andreas frowns at him out of the corner of his eye, cheek mashed against the foggy car window, but doesn’t try to wake him up. They're all tired, from the season and everything else, and Tyler's looking more tired than any of them. More tired than his playing time should maybe warrant, but Andreas doesn't know what to think about that so he tries not to think about it at all. 

It's kind of nice anyway. He keeps the radio down low and Tyler doesn't snore loudly at all and when he stops at a gas station to get himself a Red Bull Tyler sleeps through the whole thing so no one even makes fun of him for breaking diet. 

He wakes up a little bit as they get to Sudbury, enough that Andreas can make him give directions at least. They make it to Tyler’s house before the sun’s even really started setting and Andreas parks in the street extremely carefully. 

He wants to make a good impression. That’s all. 

Tyler stops him before he can get out of the car though. He looks kind of pained and no amount of sleep-ruffled grogginess is enough to distract from that. 

“Okay, when you go in, don’t freak out, okay?” Tyler says. He’s looking at Andreas very intently and it’s kind of throwing him off. “My dad is, uh…” 

He trails off and shrugs helplessly. Andreas thinks that’s probably kind of fair. He’s not sure how he’d articulate ‘a magical creature but living in suburban Sudbury’ either. 

“I mean, yeah,” Andreas says. He’s kind of mystified. “I won’t stare or anything.” 

“Oh he won’t give a shit about that,” Tyler says, flicking that idea away with a wave of his hand. “Nothing you do will bother him, probably. Just, uh… whatever happens, you’re gonna be safe, okay?” 

Andreas stares at him. He’s starting to suspect he’s a little out of his depth. Or, possibly… more than a little. 

“I’ll make sure nothing happens to you,” Tyler continues when Andreas doesn’t say anything. His shoulders are up around his ears and he looks faintly embarrassed, hat tipped forward into his face. He still looks incredibly human. 

“Tyler,” Andreas manages. 

“Don’t _worry_ about it,” Tyler insists. 

Andreas is worrying about it.

-/-

Tyler’s mom is short and very pretty in a distant sort of way and the way she smiles at him is incredibly warm. She invites them inside and offers them coffee and scolds Tyler for not telling her that Andreas was coming or that he’s vegan. It reminds him of his own mom with a pang.

Tyler grins at him and at his mom. It’s endearing. 

“I’ve got to run to the store to get food we can make for you,” Mrs. Bertuzzi sighs after she’s bullied Andreas into accepting a glass of water. She points at Tyler. “Keep an eye on him, alright?” 

“Yes, _mom_ ,” Tyler says and rolls his eyes and Mrs. Bertuzzi shakes her head at him but bustles out the door. He spins to grin at Andreas and Andreas really doesn’t regret giving away a whole day of sleeping in as much as he should. “Wanna see the rest of the house?”

“Sure,” Andreas says and hitches his backpack higher on his shoulder. 

He trails Tyler around the downstairs of the house, commenting dutifully on all the hockey shit and only making a little bit of fun of him for having so much Leafs merchandise still. He’s deeply aware of the piles of Leafs shirts under his bed back in London. It’s kind of adorable anyway, how excited Tyler gets to show him his first game puck. 

“Oh, hey,” Tyler says at last. “Drop your shit in the living room, fuck, I bet we have some popcorn somewhere, you can eat that. I’ll go look.” 

“Sure,” Andreas says because he’s actually kind of pretty hungry and heads in the direction he remembers the living room being. Tyler’s calling something after him but he turns the corner into what happens to really be the living room and promptly slams right into someone big and warm and absolutely immovable. He rebounds off and looks up, and then up some more at the man he’d run into. 

There’s something slightly off about the frame of him. There’s something about him that’s-

“Oh,” Andreas says, his voice going so very small, and the man turns to look at him. 

The man is very tall and, Andreas sees now, he has horns. Antlers like a deer. That’s all he has a chance to really think before he’s meeting the man’s eyes and they’re golden. 

All of his thoughts crash into silence. 

Andreas's ears are ringing, faint and high and musical like bells. He can’t breathe, he realizes dreamily. There’s something in his chest squeezing his lungs like a fist and he can’t force himself to take a breath. All he can see is the man’s inhuman eyes, bright and cold like golden coins. They have pupils like a goat. 

“ _Dad_ ,” Tyler snaps from the end of the hall and the man with the honest to fucking Jesus _rack of antlers_ finally looks away. Abruptly whatever awful thing that'd seized up in Andreas's chest falls away and he chokes for air. “Fuck, that's my teammate! Stop it!”

The man snorts. 

“You're being sentimental,” he says. His voice is very… just, like, _very_. Andreas locks his knees so he doesn't topple over. 

Tyler rolls his eyes. He's got his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans and his stupid fucking oversized trucker hat jammed over his messy hair. He looks like Tyler's always looked. Andreas can just also see now how he looks like this man, this troll, his _dad_ , as well. 

“This is why I never bring friends over,” he snaps, oblivious to how Andreas is building towards what looks to be an awe-inspiring panic attack. “He's good at hockey, don't eat him.” 

Andreas sucks in a breath to echo Tyler's words and golden, inhuman eyes flash his way. The breath chokes to an involuntary stop in his lungs. It's impossible to think with those eyes on him. 

“Dad!” Tyler prompts. “Promise you're not gonna eat Andreas.” 

The man sighs and rolls his eyes and suddenly looks a lot more like a put-upon father than anyone with golden goat eyes and a rack of antlers has any business looking. 

“Yes, alright, Tyler,” he says, tolerantly. “I swear I won't try to eat your friend Andreas.” 

“You better not,” Tyler grumbles and Andreas discovers he can breathe again with a gasp.

-/-

“You could have warned me,” Andreas hisses when Mr. Bertuzzi has more or less formally introduced himself and Tyler's made popcorn and Mrs. Bertuzzi got back from the store in time to at least have made a general attempt at small talk. Now that Andreas has apparently been taken off the menu Mr. Bertuzzi is treating him with a placid kind of disinterest while simultaneously maintaining unblinking eye contact.

It reminds Andreas unpleasantly of Animal Planet specials about the African savannah. He keeps glancing over his shoulder. 

“I tried,” Tyler defends himself, pushing open one of the doorways off the upstairs hallway. “C’mon, this is my room.” 

“You said some ominous bullshit and then let me walk right in there,” Andreas counters in a venomous undertone, and follows Tyler into his room. 

It’s a lot like his own bedroom back in Detroit; not as messy as he’d expect, the bed piled high with blankets. There’s more Leafs posters on the walls, a framed jersey in the corner, a medal pinned above the bed that looks like it had to be from Tyler’s, like, peewee years. Andreas aches to poke around but refuses to let himself be distracted. 

“I _kinda_ tried,” Tyler says and throws himself on the bed. He’s looking at Andreas through his hair, expression obstinate and slightly guilty. Andreas rolls his eyes. “I didn’t want to freak you out.” 

“Bro,” Andreas mutters and sits next to Tyler on the bed. “Your dad nearly _ate_ me.” 

“Did not,” Tyler says contrarily. He’s already squirming to get his phone out of his pocket. “He just kinda threatened to. If he was really gonna try you’d be eaten by now.” 

“ _Tuzzi,_ ” Andreas squawks and smacks the phone out of Tyler’s hand onto the sheets. Tyler makes a wounded noise. “What was that about not freaking me out?” 

“Don’t be a drama queen,” Tyler says and punches Andreas in the shoulder, hard. “I was there, nothing was gonna happen to you. Calm down and let me check my fuckin’ texts.” 

“It’s just gonna be Larkin wanting to meet up for the bars,” Andreas mutters rebelliously but goes for his own phone. Maybe Instagram will soothe his rattled nerves. And distract him from the way they’re laying together on Tyler’s childhood bed. 

Ugh.

-/-

Tyler looks better, on the drive back to Detroit. Less like he’s about to fall asleep against the window any second, at least. He doesn’t have a single horrifying nosebleed, lucky for Andreas's car’s upholstery. Andreas has to slap his hands away from the radio to keep him from changing the station, and he makes Andreas stop at a gas station in fucking Kitchener at like nine o'clock at night to buy turkey jerky and sour Skittles, which is as close to normal as Tyler ever gets.

Andreas makes Tyler give him a handful of Skittles and when Tyler bitches reminds him that of the two of them, it wasn’t _Andreas’_ dad that’d tried to eat one of them. 

Tyler rolls his eyes but shares another handful without Andreas having to ask. Andreas figures he isn’t too mad about it.

-/-

Dylan tries to make fun of him for skipping out on going out the night before when they show up for practice the next day.

“I’m gonna text Werenski and tell him you got drunk and cried on my shoulder about missing him,” Andreas threatens idly. 

He doesn’t have Werenski’s number. This is not a problem; first of all, _Dylan_ doesn’t know Andreas doesn’t have Werenski’s number. Second of all, getting Werenski’s number would take less than three minutes of work anyway. Two, if Tyler distracted Dylan so Andreas could steal his phone. 

“But I didn’t,” Dylan says. He looks unreasonably wounded and, tellingly, slightly unsure of himself. Andreas raises both eyebrows at him. 

“He’d believe me, though,” he says, and Dylan flips him off but shuffles away to harass Green about practicing faceoffs or whatever the fuck. 

“You should do it anyway,” Tyler says and Andreas jumps about a foot in the air. 

“Jesus, dude,” he wheezes. Tyler squints at him. 

“You’re kind of uptight, you know that?” he tells him and pops a squat to adjust his skate laces. Andreas gapes at the air where his head had been. He wants to be offended but he’s mostly just trying to process the fact that some blessed someone had given Tyler a scrunchie to hold his hair back with. 

It’s Wings red. Andreas is ready to die, possibly. 

“Whatever,” he manages eventually and sits down to fix his own laces. It leaves him at a level with the messy knot Tyler’s made out of his bun. Andreas resolutely does not allow himself to think about fixing it. 

He fails abjectly and reaches out helplessly to bat at the tangled snarl Tyler’s made. 

“That’s a mess, dude,” he says and Tyler snorts, reaching up and pulling the scrunchie out, thank god. His hair falls in his face and Andreas still wants to, like, get his hands in it to fix it but at least it isn’t cute. 

He’s spending too long looking. 

“Could you grow antlers?” Andreas asks abruptly. 

It’s weirdly easy, picturing Tyler with them, a full rack like his dad's arching over his snarled mess of a flow. It's like… kind of a compelling picture. 

“Dunno,” Tyler says dubiously. “S'not like I've tried. That'd be hard to hide.” 

“Kinda hot though,” Andreas says and bites down on the inside of his cheek because _what the fuck was that?_

Tyler stares at him for a second. His face is doing something even more unreadable than his usual expression. Andreas can't tell what he's thinking at all. 

“Hot?” he asks at last. 

Andreas shrugs. 

“Whatever,” he adds when that doesn't seem convincingly chill enough. 

Tyler thinks a little longer. It's kind intense, Andreas is realizing, having Tyler stare at him like this. 

“...You think my dad is hot,” he says at last and Andreas chokes on nothing. 

“ _What?_ ” he squawks. “I do _not!_ ” 

Tyler's grinning at him now. 

“You think my dad is hot,” he repeats. “You're so fucking weird, dude. You're can't fuck my dad, he'd eat you!” 

“He swore he wouldn’t!” Andreas says, and then, “and I don’t wanna fuck your fucking dad!” 

Tyler rolls his eyes at him. 

“He’d figure out a way around that,” he says, casual like that isn’t the most terrifying fucking thing possible. “So you like, really better not. Plus my mom would kill you.” 

“I hate this conversation so much,” Andreas says with feeling. “I swear, I do _not_ want to fuck your dad.” 

Tyler shrugs elaborately, bobbing his stupid hat to the locker room music. He’s grinning and his missing tooth is absolutely not charming in any way at all.

-/-

The Wings’ bathroom has seen some shit. It’s definitely seen a lot of Tyler.

Andreas knows it’s him before the door even closes behind him. He’s not overly fond of the fact that he can tell Tyler’s retching noises apart from general puke noises, but he guesses he’s happy that he found him instead of leaving Tyler to deal with this alone. 

“You can’t be nervous,” he calls and dumps his bag in the corner. He’s not leaving Tyler alone in here and he suspect he’s gonna be here a while as a result. “No game tonight.” 

Tyler laughs. It’s a wet and disgusting noise. 

“Hey,” he calls back. He’s in the farthest stall from the door and it’s not latched; Andreas edges in. 

Tyler’s folded down around the toilet like a miserable little pretzel in a configuration that looks designed to fold him up as tiny as possible. He looks like he’s been there a while. He also looks pathetic as fuck. He’s sweaty and wan and his hair is sticking to his cheeks. When he tries to smile it plays Andreas's heartstrings like a harp. 

“You look like shit,” he says. Tyler rolls his eyes and leans over a little to spit into the toilet bowl. It smells like puke, but less so than Andreas would have thought. 

“Thanks, dude,” he answers. His voice is broken and hoarse. “Feeling the love.” 

“One sec, be right back,” Andreas says and heads back to his bag to snag a bottle of water and then, after a moment of thought, a Gatorade too. Electrolytes and sugar and shit, he theorizes, and heads back to Tyler. “Here.” 

Tyler takes the water and sips gratefully, tucking the Gatorade between his knees. 

“Thanks,” he mumbles. His head is lolling against the wall like it’s too much effort to keep up. 

“Yeah, ‘course,” Andreas answers and folds himself down to sit next to him. 

A moment later Tyler twitches and bends forward over the toilet to retch some more. Nothing seems to be really coming up but the convulsions shake him anyway. His hair is threatening to get into his eyes. 

Andreas carefully gathers sweaty hair back from Tyler’s temples. It’s objectively pretty gross. He doesn’t even try to stop himself. 

“Thanks,” Tyler mumbles again. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Andreas says back quietly. Tyler’s hair is tangled and coarse with sweat and Andreas runs his fingers gently through the ends, a mindless little tug. “This is… this isn't normal, Tuzzi.”

“Maybe it’s a stomach bug,” Tyler offers. His voice echoes oddly in the toilet bowl. 

“Are you sure this isn't, like,” Andreas tries as delicately as he can. “...Dietary?”

Tyler lifts his head from the toilet to look down his nose at Andreas. It pulls his hair in Andreas's grip just a little bit. Considering his nose, it's an experience. 

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure I don't need to eat human flesh,” he says, as sarcastic a tone as Andreas has ever heard from him. “Thanks, though, I really want to think about eating right now for _sure_.”

“You know that?” Andreas asks anyway, despite how awe-inspiringly green Tyler really does look. “You're sure?”

Tyler nods. His chin narrowly misses knocking into the toilet seat. 

“Woulda come up before, probably. ‘Sides, I'm not sure if eating people is like a dietary necessity,” Tyler says, and Andreas can hear their nutritionist when Tyler says that, “or, y'know, a choice? Seemed rude to ask.” 

“Rude,” Andreas says dubiously. “Right.” 

Tyler shrugs around the way he's hugging the toilet. 

“I can eat you if you want me to,” he says philosophically. “But I’m pretty sure I’d just throw you back up.” 

“Like, please don’t,” Andreas says and it comes out vaguely strangled. He’s thinking about the last time he and Tyler had talked about this, the tone of voice Tyler had said _not like that_ in. Tyler’s sweaty and kind of green and smells like puke, and Andreas can still feel himself going red. He hates himself so much. 

“If you say so,” Tyler says agreeably and leans down to throw up some more.

-/-

The thing about having standing Chipotle burrito - not dates, fuck you, Larkin - _lunch plans_ is that generally people show up for them.

Andreas waits twenty minutes before he orders Tyler's usual to-go and heads for Tyler's apartment. 

It takes him a second to remember the code to Tyler’s security door but he gets it eventually and lets himself into the elevator, munching a chip. He can tell his burrito is going cold and it’s making him a little grumpy. Tyler better have a fucking great excuse, he reflects. Like, having broken a leg or something. 

He frowns, exiting the elevator and heading for Tyler’s door, and carefully revises that thought. Maybe just having a really epic hangover. 

Andreas knocks, waits a minute and knocks again, and then leans on Tyler’s doorbell for long enough he’s sure he’s pissing off Tyler’s neighbors. There’s no noise from inside the apartment, and Andreas pulls out his phone, frowning. 

It rings through to voicemail and Andreas stares down at his phone until the screen goes dark, and then at the blank door to Tyler’s apartment. 

There’s a well of unease opening in the pit of his stomach. A little lurch like he just tripped up the stairs. 

He looks around and then down at the welcome mat. There’s no flower pots or anything, but on a hunch he kicks up the corner of the mat and sighs through his nose at the shiny spare key he finds there. 

“I’m gonna have to have a talk with you about security,” he tells the key, not super caring that he’s talking to himself, and stoops heavily to scoop it up. 

Tyler’s apartment is dark and apparently deserted. Andreas pokes around in the living room and kitchen a little bit, pulling up the blinds and eyeing the contents of Tyler’s fridge judgmentally. Not that there’s much in there to judge. Part of the judgement is how sparse it is. 

Tyler’s nowhere in the front of his apartment. 

Andreas spends a long few minutes shuffling his feet in the carpet, staring down the hallway at what he’s pretty sure is Tyler’s bedroom door. It’s shut and there’s no light coming from underneath it, and Andreas is pretty sure it’s not polite to go poking around in Tyler’s bedroom when he hadn’t even technically been invited into the apartment. 

He’s pretty sure he’s gonna do it anyway. He can see Tyler’s not in the bathroom from here and it’s not like he’s gonna be chilling in his linen closet. Andreas is running out of places to look. 

The first thing he notes about Tyler’s room is that it’s dark. 

The second thing about Tyler’s room that Andreas notes is that Tyler’s in it. 

He’s asleep, Andreas realizes after a moment of transcendent and utter terror, because he’s a motionless lump under what looks like an entire clearance section of sheets and blankets. It takes a snuffling breath from the lump in question before he’s really, actually sure Tyler isn’t dead. He’s starting to get very tired of Tyler imitating murder victims inadvertently. 

“It’s fucking two o’clock in the afternoon,” Andreas says, amazed. 

Tyler doesn’t respond, due to being asleep. 

“Can you wake the fuck up,” Andreas says, louder. “I got you a burrito.” 

Tyler snores at him. 

“Jesus Christ,” Andreas mutters and kicks aside a discarded water bottle to get to Tyler’s bed. His room isn’t as messy as Andreas would have expected, just kind of cluttered. His bed is the messiest thing, he’s got more blankets than a Bed Bath & Beyond. Unearthing enough of Tyler to try to shake him takes a second. 

Tyler doesn’t wake up. Andreas frowns and shakes him again.

He still doesn’t wake up. He hangs from Andreas's grip and doesn’t even twitch, lax and boneless and surprisingly cold, where Andreas is holding his shoulders. It’s hard to see in the dimness of his room but he looks very pale. That well of unease in Andreas's gut is opening wider and wider and something animal in him is whispering that something is very, very wrong. 

“Tyler,” Andreas says and shakes him again, hard enough he’d probably feel bad if it weren’t for the panic trying to take root in his chest. Tyler just huffs out another snuffling sigh and still doesn’t wake up. He’s so pale. 

“ _Tyler!_ ” he shouts, and Tyler’s eyes don’t even flicker under his lids. Andreas drops him. 

There’s a glass of water on Tyler’s nightstand. Andreas doesn’t even think. He just grabs it and dumps it all over Tyler’s head. 

Tyler comes awake with a shriek. Andreas drops the glass onto the floor and falls back a step. 

Relief is palpable in his chest. Also palpable is the dawning realization he might have overreacted a little, which is promptly dismissed outright. 

“ _Holy shit_ ,” Tyler sputters, thrashing in his sheets for a moment before his eyes finally crack open and he sees Andreas. 

“Uh,” Andreas says and kicks the glass he’d dropped under the bed. 

“Andreas, what the _fuck?_ ” Tyler demands hoarsely. He’s squinting through the water and pawing at his face clumsily. It is, Andreas tries not to think in the tiny little part of him not trying to roll him back from a panic attack, kind of cute. 

“I couldn’t wake you up,” Andreas says. He’s still panting a little bit, panic is still surging blunt and breathless in his chest. Tyler’s face is still in his head, slack and pale and stupid with unconsciousness. How he’d lolled like a ragdoll when Andreas had shaken him. 

“’M a heavy sleeper,” Tyler croaks and frees a hand from the tangle of his sheets to plant a palm on Andreas's forehead and shove him away. “Did you break into my apartment?” 

“Another fucking thing,” Andreas says, abruptly remembering. “You keep a spare key under your _welcome mat?_ ” 

“Christ,” Tyler bitches. “Can we go back to talking about me sleeping in, actually? I’d rather talk about that.” 

“Fuck you,” Andreas says, sincerely. “I couldn’t wake you up for a full, like, five minutes. You wouldn’t answer the fucking door, I rang the bell for forever.” 

“Oh my god,” Tyler says muzzily, scrubbing his wet hair away from his face with both hands. “I forgot my fucking alarm, _mom._ ”

“It’s past noon!” Andreas squawks and ignores that he probably does sound like his fucking mom, _again._

Tyler squints at him. His hair is a nest and he’s pink with sleep and also, Andreas is pretty sure, he’s not wearing a shirt. Somehow this adds up to being something Andreas is absolutely not going to deal with at all. 

“Whatever,” Tyler dismisses him summarily, flapping a hand at him. “Go away, I wanna shower. We can go get dinner or something.” 

“I'm serious about your key,” Andreas says, staying where he is, because he really is serious. “That's stupid, Tuzzi, anyone could get into your apartment. You need to be safer.”

Tyler starts getting out of bed and Andreas spins and heads for the door before he can discover whether Tyler sleeps in boxers or what. He just… he really does not want to know. 

“What _ever_ ,” Tyler tells him, voice floating out the door after him as Andreas makes his escape down the hall. “You keep it if you care so fucking much, Jesus.” 

Andreas doesn't believe him but he gets an alert from the group chat a minute later. 

_n e one needs 2 get in my house 2A has the spare,_ Tyler's sent. Andreas gapes at his phone. 

_y does dre have ur key,_ Larkin replies a moment later and Andreas locks his phone rather than deal with any of that. He does pocket the key, though.

-/-

“So you and Bert, huh?” Dylan says, sliding into the seat next to Andreas. Andreas narrows his eyes at him.

“Don’t you have Werenski to be texting,” he asks snidely. Dylan shoves at him affably. 

“C’mon, ‘Dre,” he coaxes. “I wanna stay in touch with my _teammates._ ”

“Touch this,” Andreas says and extends a middle finger into Dylan’s face until he has to fall backwards into the bus aisle, laughing like a demented asshole the entire way. Andreas fucking hates him, seriously, he means it.

-/-

Andreas watches Animal Planet, which is always a bad idea. They're playing some special about bugs and pheromones and he's on the couch in his boxers, eating popcorn and getting really freaked out by the praying mantis mandibles.

Their eyes kind of remind him of Tyler, in the way anything with a weird angular face and strange eyes reminds him of Tyler. He's considering idly whether trolls counted as a member of the animal kingdom and whether it would be worth it to ask Tyler when Tyler almost definitely doesn't have the faintest idea when it occurs to him that maybe the reason he can't stop thinking about Tyler is because he's a praying mantis. 

Not in the face sense so much. And not as much in the sense of eating his mates, although Andreas has the teeniest bit of a moment thinking about Tyler and mating and trying to decide whether Tyler would do the eating or get eaten without thinking about the mating too hard. In the sense of pheromones. Magical pheromones. 

He doesn’t, like, _really_ believe that, but _maybe_. 

His phone buzzes

 _im coming over,_ Tyler's sent, and Andreas sighs and gets up to make more popcorn. He's gonna ask more stupid questions, probably. 

Tyler sets up on the couch almost before he's in the door and Andreas despairs about the fact that they have sides of the couch and an established routine for about a minute before he gets the popcorn bowl set up between them and settles in for Animal Planet until Tyler makes fun of him enough to change it. 

“So, like,” Andreas tries, when half the popcorn is gone and Tyler's looking almost terminally chill. He's trying to think of a way to bring shit up without being, like, incredibly obvious. “What do trolls… do?” 

Tyler thinks that over. He's making a face like he doesn't quite understand the question. 

“Uh,” he says at last. “Y'know, whatever? Eat people? I dunno, troll stuff. My dad cleaned the gutter once?” 

Andreas shuffles his feet on the carpet and tries not to look as uncomfortable as he is. Tyler looks unfairly- not good exactly, but… compelling, sprawled on Andreas's couch like nothing could possibly bother him. It's hard not to make stupid faces when he looks at him. 

“No, like magic powers,” he tries, and then decides that fuck it, it's not like he has any dignity left to lose. “To make you, like, like them.” 

“S'a lot of likes in that sentence, bro,” Tyler says absently. He's wearing his thinking face, inscrutable, mouth pursed up into a little scrunch. Andreas eyes him warily, because he's pretty sure Tyler is totally oblivious to Andreas's _whatever_ , but… 

“It's whatever,” he tries after a second and Tyler flaps a hand at him until he shuts up. 

“I knew it,” he says at last. He's breaking into an absolutely brilliant grin. “I _knew_ you thought my dad was hot.” 

“I do not!” Andreas says shrilly and tries to hit Tyler with a throw pillow. Tyler hits back and in the ensuing pillow fight at least Tyler seems to forget about what Andreas asked about, thank God.

-/-

He finds Tyler crumpled in the far bathroom stall, leaning against the partition with his head between his knees. There’s blood on his shirt again. He’s clutching a towel to his face and it’s worryingly stained.

He doesn’t say anything. He just turns around and fetches a cup of water and a protein bar from Tyler’s stall. Tyler’s still there when he comes back, hasn’t appeared to move at all. If Andreas couldn’t see his shoulders move as he breathes he might have thought he'd found Tyler's corpse. 

He crouches next to him and carefully gets a hand on his shoulder. 

“M’ okay,” Tyler mumbles. He’s slurring like he’s drunk. It’s muffled by the towel he’s holding to his nose. He’s manifestly lying. 

“Alright,” Andreas says instead of arguing because he’s not that much of an asshole. He waits instead, until Tyler finally pulls the towel away from his face and accepts the cup of water and careful bites of the protein bar. There’s browning blood smeared all over his nose and mouth and chin. 

“I’m okay,” Tyler says, a little clearer. He can barely keep his eyes open. He’s so fucking pale. 

“Yeah,” Andreas says, not really agreeing at all. “I’m gonna drive you home, kay?” 

“Kay,” Tyler says, and leans on Andreas all the way to his car.

-/-

He catches Tyler throwing up again the next day. He doesn’t even try to say anything this time; it’s stupidly obvious Tyler isn’t fine, just like it’s obvious he’s not going to admit it.

It’s infuriating, but holding Tyler’s hair back as he spits up bile because he’s already emptied the entire contents of his stomach is kind of all he can do. That, and worry endlessly. 

“M’sorry,” Tyler says at one point. He’s got a hand curled loosely around Andreas's knee, picking at the seam of his trackies with nervous, absent speed. He’s got his eyes closed and the bags under them are heavy and dark. 

“S’okay,” Andreas says.

-/-

He rallies on their road trip. It’s a weeklong trek to the Western Conference, a quick and humiliating tour of the Pacific Division before they’re back to get the shit kicked out of them in their own barn.

Andreas watches like a hawk but Tyler seems okay when they load up on the plane, falling right asleep against the window and waking up an hour into their flight to challenge the entire back half of the plane to a game of poker. He’s grinning stupidly wide. 

His cheeks look a little hollow, but Andreas keeps nudging pretzels his way and tells himself it’s a good thing he’s looking so energetic. 

The pattern holds through Columbus, through San Jose, through a string of absolutely pathetic losses up and down the seaboard. Andreas tries not to think about that and focus on how Tyler keeps looking better and better instead. 

“Maybe I had mono,” Tyler theorizes cheerfully, the one time Andreas tries to bring it up to him in the hallways outside their Los Angeles hotel room. He makes his escape while Andreas is still gaping and grasping after a way to articulate just how stupid that is.

-/-

They get home, they beat the Flyers in the shootout.

Andreas finds a bloody towel under the bench next to Tyler’s stall. Tyler himself is long gone.

-/-

“Sorry, man,” Tyler says. It's probably just the shitty connection that has him sounding so hoarse, Andreas lies to himself. His apartment is kind of a dead zone, he never has a clear connection, no one ever sounds like themselves. “I gotta duck out on the ‘ritos tonight. Have some extra guacamole for me.”

“Yeah, dude,” Andreas croaks. “Yeah, will do.”

He doesn't end up going to Chipotle. He doesn't wanna sit alone in the booth and studiously not think about anything at all. He can load up on tofu and guacamole in his own apartment and let ESPN try to distract him.

-/-

Andreas isn't surprised when Tyler takes a hit at practice that any of them should have been able to skate off even on a bad day, crumples to the ice, and doesn't get back up again.

Frantic with fear, he nearly gets into a shouting match with Houda before Dylan hauls him away and shakes him until he takes a breath, but he isn't surprised. He's almost more surprised it took so long. 

“He’s gonna be okay,” Dylan says to him in an undertone and lets Andreas rest his forehead against his shoulder until he gets his breathing under control, because he’s an amazing friend no matter how much they pick on each other. He doesn’t make Andreas say a word. Andreas isn’t sure he could even if he wanted to. 

The staff tell them they're putting Tyler on IR for non-serious illness. Andreas does not miss the pinched, concerned way the trainers had been frowning. 

He checks his phone as soon as he's off the ice. Texts, tweets, Insta DMs, missed calls. Nothing from Tyler. Nothing at all.

-/-

They have a game. Andreas tries to focus on that because it isn't like he has much choice anyway and if he thinks about Tyler for longer than a second at a time his vision starts to tunnel and passing out himself probably won't do Tyler any good.

They're gonna lose. To the Blue Jackets. There's a lot of things Andreas is trying not to think about. 

He can’t settle. He can’t hit the net on a single fucking shot during practice. He can’t stop feeling where Tyler would be on the ice, a glaring heavy absence like it’s never been before for any of his other scratches or maintenance days. It’s taking all of his concentration not to think about it. 

Blashill finally lets him off the ice. He rockets through his shower and changing, dodges media every step of the way. As always, he’s grateful most of them want to talk to Dylan. He can slip out through a side door, make his way towards the visitor’s side. It’ll be easier to sneak out that way. 

Approaching footsteps force him to duck in a side door, into what looks like some kind of conference room. There’s a whiteboard with a poorly erased play diagram on it across the room from where he’s hiding behind the door like some kind of little kid. 

Andreas presses his clenched fists against his thighs. The anger and abject fear are useless and he tries to force them to unclench in his chest so he can breathe right. It doesn’t really work. 

Laughter from the hallway as the footsteps come closer. Laughter Andreas vaguely recognizes. 

“Fuck, this place is bad,” Dubois says as the footsteps draw even with the door and the distaste is so obvious in his voice Andreas almost steps out to say something because, fuck, their arena might not be the best in the world but it’s _theirs_. “It’s already tearing my lungs up, how do you think they play a whole season here?” 

Andreas pauses because… what?

“Nash used to say that,” someone Andreas belatedly decides is probably Culvert laughs. “I don’t know, man. Don’t even know if any of your people are on the Wings, y’know?” 

“Fucking steel towns,” Dubois says, and they’re moving away down the hall, his voice fading as they go. “Pittsburgh isn’t close to this bad and I don’t know how Letang deals with it.” 

Andreas sits down against the wall and stares into space for a little while. 

Letang. Nash. The way Culvert had said _any of your people,_ the implications of it all. 

Steel towns. 

Fuck.

-/-

Andreas doesn’t quite slam the door open but he does misjudge how hard he opens it, with how angry he is, and it slams off Tyler’s bedroom wall anyway with a loud bang. Tyler jumps, where he’s sitting under the covers looking drawn and pale and pathetic. He’s got his fucking hat on.

“Were you gonna fucking tell me,” Andreas says, making sure to enunciate carefully so Tyler can’t pretend not to understand him, “that you’re allergic to the city of Detroit.” 

Tyler makes a face. 

“You knew,” Andreas realizes. Because he’d kind of known Tyler had to know. There was no way he didn’t know. But now, here, proof that Tyler knew he was sick and wasn’t _doing shit about it_. “You fucking idiot. You fucking moron, what the fuck did you think you were doing?” 

“Fuck off,” Tyler croaks. He sounds awful. His nose is bright red. 

“You're sick,” Andreas says pointlessly. He's seeing it all over again like it’s the first time, how _sick_ Tyler really is. He's heaving for air even though he's barely moved at all, panting like he'd just run a race. It looks like his whole body is fighting for air. 

“Shouldn’t have given you my spare key,” Tyler says grumpily. 

“You lied to me,” he says quietly. 

All the fight goes out of Tyler like a pathetic, terminally ill balloon. 

“‘Dre,” he says quietly. He’s so wheezy. “It’s not like that.” 

“You lied to my fucking face,” Andreas repeats. The anger and fear are spinning around in his gut like the world’s most hellish laundry machine. He’s not totally sure he isn’t gonna throw up all over Tyler’s lap. “You knew this was killing you and you told me you were _fine_.” 

“I probably won’t die,” Tyler argues. It would be more convincing if there weren’t a little pyramid of bloody Kleenex next to his bed. 

“Tyler,” Andreas snaps. The throwing up is looking increasingly likely. 

Tyler looks down at his hands in his lap. 

“You just would have told me to stop,” he says at last. His voice is very quiet. “And I’m not gonna. No one can make me.” 

“It's killing you!” Andreas shouts. Tyler doesn't flinch. He doesn't look up from his hands either. 

“Doesn't matter,” he says. “M'not stopping.” 

“Request a trade,” Andreas suggests wildly. “Ask to get sent down, Jesus! You can play hockey anywhere, Tuzzi!” 

“I’m not leaving the Wings,” Tyler says, the same implacable tone to his voice. He’s not even angry. Andreas isn’t sure Tyler has it in him to be angry right now, anyway. He just sounds certain. 

“Detroit is making you sick,” Andreas hisses. He’s got a hand fisted in his hair, he discovers distantly. It’s possible he’s being a little dramatic. It’s kind of called for. 

“They believe in me,” Tyler says obstinately and sets his jaw. He’s so fucking pale. The strange bones of his face stand out even more, with the weight he’s lost between the puking and the sleeping so much and the full NHL season he’s been skating anyway. “They gave me a real shot. I’m not gonna waste that just ‘cuz of some, some bullshit magic.” 

“Tuzzi,” Andreas says helplessly. “This is killing you.” 

“I’m not quitting,” Tyler says. His hands are fisted in the sheets. “I’m fucking not, ‘Dre. There’s gonna be a way to fix me, and we’re gonna fucking drag the Wings to the Stanley Cup. We’re gonna _do that_.” 

Andreas swallows around the way it feels like there’s something stuck in his throat. 

“Shit, Tuzzi,” he says at last. His voice comes out croaky and hoarse. The anger is giving way to sick, unpleasant fear and just a little bit of unwilling admiration. “Just… Christ. Fine. We gotta get you out of the city for a little while, at least.”

Tyler grins. It’s a little horrifying.

-/-

The drive out of Detroit is too quiet.

Tyler spends the first hour of it dozing against the window and Andreas tries not to grit his teeth so hard he cracks a filling. They’re starting to creak ominously. 

He wakes up a little when Andreas stops at a gas station in Brampton to stretch his legs, peering owlishly at him as he gets out but staying in place. He’s still awake when Andreas gets back and when Andreas grumpily throws a packet of Skittles at him, he grins. 

“I still haven’t forgiven you,” Andreas grumbles at him, starting the car, and Tyler nods. He’s already stuffing a handful of Skittles into his mouth. It absolutely isn’t cute. It’s kind of gross, actually. 

A minute or so into getting onto the freeway a hand sneaks across the dashboard and nudges Andreas's hip until he offers a palm and a couple Skittles are dropped into it. He doesn’t say anything, but he feels his shoulders fall a little from where they feel like they’d been stuck up by his ears the entire drive. When Tyler reaches over to turn the radio on, Andreas doesn’t stop him. 

“When I caught you throwing up, that first time,” he says at last. It’s pretty far from quiet, with the radio on, but his voice makes Tyler jump anyway. “And you asked me if I got nervous. Were you just… were you lying? Trying to get me not to ask you about it?” 

He tries to keep his voice neutral. He’s not sure it really works. Tyler doesn’t answer for a long moment and then he reaches over and turns the radio down. 

“Uh,” he says and when Andreas glances over he’s, like, _astonishingly_ pink. “Uh, actually? I uh… I think that time I threw up because, uh, I was nervous. If I, y’know, have to be honest.” 

“Jesus Christ, dude,” Andreas says on reflex. “Seriously?” 

“Brah,” Tyler says, sounding aggrieved. The flush is deepening to a fine, even scarlet. “Eyes on the fucking _road_ , fuckhead.” 

“ _Dude,_ ” Andreas says, putting his eyes back on the fucking road. He’s grinning. 

“Fuck off,” Tyler grumbles, and turns the radio back up.

-/-

They get to the Bertuzzis’ as the sun is starting to go down, the snow white and blank across the front yard. It’s such a normal-looking house, Andreas reflects. So fucking normal for how absolutely batshit what it contains truly is.

Tyler tugs him to a stop by a grip on his coat sleeve. It’s cold, and his breath is steaming in the air. Andreas looks at him and he’s _angry_ , but he can’t stop looking anyway. 

“Tuzzi,” he prompts when Tyler doesn’t say anything. 

“I don't… want you to be angry at me,” Tyler says reluctantly. The flush in his cheeks looks like it's barely the fever. “I mean, I get it. I wouldn't change anything. I'm sorry for lying, though.” 

Andreas breathes in, holds it for a second. The winter air is crisp and biting cold and it stings in his lungs. Tyler won't meet his eyes but he also hasn't stopped glancing in his direction, like he really wants to. 

“I'm still fucking angry,” he says at last. Tyler nods. “I'm just, I'm scared, Tyler. You get that, right? You really, really scared me.” 

“I get it,” Tyler agrees. He’s standing pigeon-toed. His shoulders are hunched. It’s _so_ pathetic. “M’sorry.” 

Andreas breathes out through his nose. He’s weak, is what he is. He’s fucking weak. 

“Christ,” he grumbles and grabs Tyler by the arm and drags him into a hug. Tyler startles but goes easily, folds his arms awkwardly around Andrea’s shoulders and gets a grip on the back of his shirt and just- holds on. 

He’s too skinny and Andreas has an inch or two on him. He’s still solid as a brick wall and Andreas is weak and also a dumbass so he presses his face against Tyler's shoulder and hangs on way past when he should probably have let go. They're almost the same size and he can tell Tyler probably outweighs him, when he isn't wasting away. 

Tyler's hair is really long. It's tickling his face, sticking to his mouth when he finally gets himself to let go. 

“Let's get you fixed,” he mutters. He's probably flushing from his hairline to his chest. Tyler's grinning, goofy and wide enough he's got to squint around it. 

He knocks on the Bertuzzis’ door, Tyler still leaning against him under his arm. It takes a moment for the door to open but it does eventually and Tyler’s mom peers at them. 

“Hello-,” she begins pleasantly, and then her eyes alight on where Tyler’s trying to disappear behind Andreas without moving. Her expression goes sharp and slightly feral and Andreas is reminded abruptly that Tyler’s dad might be a full-blood troll but his _mom_ isn’t exactly entirely human either. 

“Tyler Bertuzzi,” she says, deadly and calm. 

“Hi, mom,” he squeaks, and Andreas shamelessly shoves him forward. 

“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Bertuzzi,” he says pleasantly. She looks at him sharply, and then nods once in something that looks like approval. 

“You had better come in, dear,” she says. It sounds a little like a royal pronouncement. Tyler flinches when her gaze flicks back to him. “As for _you_.”

-/-

Mrs. Bertuzzi sits Andreas down in the living room with a cup of fragrant, unappealing coffee and drags Tyler away with a grip on his arm that looks painful. Tyler shoots him a martyred look Andreas has no sympathy for, because Mr. Bertuzzi is sitting across from him sipping his own cup of coffee.

“Your house is lovely,” Andreas tries, because his mother had honestly done her best to raise him right. 

Mr. Bertuzzi inclines his head passively. He hasn’t blinked once. His antlers narrowly miss the wall. 

Andreas sips his coffee. It’s very good. He’s not sure caffeine is the best idea but he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands. He’s not going to get his phone out; he’s petrified of taking his eyes off Mr. Bertuzzi. 

“We didn’t know the extent of how sick Tyler had gotten,” Mr. Bertuzzi says at last, apropos of nothing at all. Andreas swallows hot coffee and manages after a brief and desperate struggle not to choke on it. 

“Um,” he says, somewhat hoarse. “Yeah, he was… he was hiding it.” 

Not well, he doesn’t say. Andreas should have seen it earlier, should have maybe said something. He doesn’t want to think about that. 

Mr. Bertuzzi nods. 

“We thought it might have missed him,” he says. “The iron sickness. It’s never been an issue before.” 

“Well,” Andreas says. He’s about to crawl out of his own skin, he’s pretty sure. He takes another sip of coffee. It really is very good coffee. “Y’know, Detroit, steel towns.” 

“The blood is strong in him,” Mr. Bertuzzi says. 

It's incredibly distracting, seeing his antlers against the fusty wallpaper of the living room, and also that Andreas has to keep looking at this tall as fuck man with antlers and goat eyes and consciously refer to him as _Mr. Bertuzzi_. He’s just doing his best not to stare. 

Mr. Bertuzzi pauses, and then sighs. “If it were stronger there would be no problem at all, of course.”

“There wouldn't?” Andreas asks blankly. 

Mr. Bertuzzi smiles at him. His teeth are very straight, very blunt, and evenly spaced in his mouth. 

“He's terribly human, Tyler,” Mr. Bertuzzi tells him. “He wouldn't care about hockey or about you, if he weren't. He certainly wouldn't have stopped me eating you.”

Andreas squeaks and then clears his throat. Mr. Bertuzzi politely doesn’t say anything. 

“I'm glad he, um, is himself,” he says, and he absolutely does mean that he's glad Tyler's dad didn't get to eat him but he's thinking about Tyler too. Trying to imagine a Tyler that doesn't love hockey with absolutely everything in himself. 

He doesn't like that thought. He doesn't like it at all. 

“We all are,” Mr. Bertuzzi says placidly. Andreas wonders absently if he could get Mr. Bertuzzi to teach him how to be so viscerally threatening doing absolutely nothing at all.

-/-

“Your dad is terrifying,” Andreas says, closing the door carefully behind him. For a second he considers locking it but first of all he just… really doesn’t want to lock himself into Tyler’s childhood bedroom alone with him. And second of all, he’s pretty sure a lock wouldn’t keep Mr. Bertuzzi out if he wanted to come in.

“You mean, you think he’s-,” Tyler begins, grinning. He’s sprawled across the bed on his stomach, looking unpleasantly skinny and a little feverish but so much better already than he did in Detroit. 

“Finish that sentence and I’ll kill you,” Andreas says and points at him. Tyler sticks his tongue out at him like a fucking baby. Andreas manfully ignores that. 

“He’s no help, though,” he sighs and shoves a pile of dirty laundry off Tyler’s desk chair to sit in it. 

Tyler makes a face. It’s a hell of a face, considering how he hasn’t put his tongue back in his mouth yet. Andreas takes a moment away from his very righteous and deserved rage to despair. At least Tyler’s already looking better, pink in the cheeks and somehow less… gaunt. 

Andreas makes a face right back. Whatever, it’s not like Tyler’s gonna judge him for immaturity. 

“Why are we talking to _my_ parents,” he complains, tongue back in his mouth at last. “It’s not like they know anything, they still hate coming to my home games. Why don’t we go talk to yours?” 

“My parents?” Andreas asks blankly. “Why would we-?” 

And then he remembers the little bundle of quartz and copper wire, still sitting on the table by his door. 

“Oh,” he says. “ _Oh_.”

-/-

He waits for the next morning to call his mom, because he’s not having the conversation that’s going to happen at ass o’clock at night. It’s easier to tuck up on Tyler’s bed with him, laptop propped up on the dresser and watching Jackass again because Tyler has a shit sense of humor.

He doesn’t have to share the bed to sleep, thank _God_. He’s not sure how he’d have survived that. The Bertuzzis let him use the air mattress instead. It had deflated in the middle of the night and his hip is kind of sore from resting on the floor, but he’s young and doesn’t have a shitload of hockey injuries yet and it’s easier to hobble around the kitchen politely making his own vegan breakfast than wake up to Tyler’s face next to his on the pillow. 

He does have a healthy streak of fear of his mother’s wrath, though, so he puts off calling his mom until lunch. There’re highlights on Sportsnet anyway, and Tyler’s kind of excited to watch them in the living room. 

“Mom and Dad try but they don’t, like, get it,” he says and shrugs. It looks like it sincerely doesn’t bother him. “Not human enough I guess.” 

Andreas does not have even the beginnings of an idea how to respond to that so he doesn’t, queueing up some West Conference to make fun of instead. 

It’s like unbearably domestic. Andreas almost forgets that it isn’t until Tyler tries to stand up too quick from the couch to go grab them tortilla chips and has to sit back down. The skin around his eyes is all grey and pale. He’s biting the inside of his lip and blinking rapidly like his vision is tunneling. 

“I’m fine,” he says when he notices Andreas is watching him. He crooks a tired smile and this time Andreas believes him. “Gotta take it slow for a while I guess.” 

“Lunch time, anyway,” Andreas says and turns off the TV and follows Tyler to the kitchen. 

He calls his mom. 

She’s happy to hear from him and he talks around what he needs for a little bit. Tells her about the games and the practices and asks about family, old friends. She knows he’s going somewhere, because his mom knows everything, and the conversation eventually trails into quiet and he knows she’s waiting for him to say something. 

“Okay uh, I have a friend,” Andreas says, making a face at Tyler when Tyler snickers at him. 

“I’m proud of you, honey,” his mom enthuses. Her voice crackles through his shitty phone speakers and he can _still_ tell she’s laughing at him. “Your very first friend.” 

“ _Mom,_ ” he whines. “Listen, this is important. He needs your help.” 

“Alright, sure, alright,” she says. She’s still laughing. Andreas winces. He’s… pretty sure this is about to go badly. “Go on, what can I help with?” 

“So, um,” Andreas says. “He’s a troll?”

-/-

It takes a while for the shouting to stop.

Tyler sits placidly across from him and kicks at his feet under the table. He doesn’t seem to mind Andreas's mom’s shouting. Andreas isn’t sure he’s even noticed, he's working his way through a pasta dish with some kind of meatballs, something Tyler’s mom had set down between them with more clucking disapproval of his skinniness. 

Andreas had eyed the meatballs nervously and politely declined. Tyler had, thank god, just snorted at him and said nothing more. 

“Mom,” he interrupts when he detects a pause to draw breath. “Mom, it's _fine_.”

“A troll,” his mom shouts. Andreas's phone's poor abused speakers cut for a second. “Baby, a _troll?_ ”

“He's not a full troll,” Andreas argues. “Just his dad! He's great, mom, I swear.”

“Hey, thanks,” Tyler says and smiles. His mouth is full of pasta. 

_You're disgusting,_ Andreas mouths at him. Tyler nudges his foot again. It's starting to feel like footsie and Andreas is starting to lose his mind. 

“They eat humans!” his mom shouts. She sounds nearly hysterical. Andreas has to pull the phone away from his ear. He's starting to get worried this conversation is going to give him tinnitus. 

Tyler hooks a foot around his ankle and lifts it a little, teasingly. 

“Hey, stop that,” Andreas tilts the phone away from his mouth to hiss. Tyler grins unrepentantly and traps Andreas's foot between his own. Their ankles are tucked together. Tyler’s hair is tucked behind his ears, making them stick out stupidly, and he looks so happy. Andreas discovers he can't look at Tyler anymore. 

“You're sure he hasn't tried to eat you,” his mom is saying. 

“I'm sure,” Andreas says and rolls his eyes. “I think I'd have noticed.” 

“Mmm,” his mom says dubiously. 

Which, worrying.

“He really hasn’t tried to eat me,” Andreas insists anyway. He’s not going to ask unless he has to, because he _really_ doesn’t wanna know. 

“I don’t want to eat people,” Tyler says loudly, around a mouthful of more pasta. 

“Hear that?” Andreas asks. “He doesn’t. Seriously, mom, he needs your help. Please?” 

There’s a moment of staticky silence, and then a heavy sigh. 

“You’re absolutely certain he’s safe,” she says softly. “These things are dangerous, Andreas. I worry for you for a reason.” 

Andreas looks across the table at Tyler. He’s fighting with the sauce and his fork to cut a meatball in half. His stupid Dumbo ears stand out against his hair. His ankles are warm where they’re braced around Andreas’s. When he sees Andreas looking he grins encouragingly, and when he does he almost looks like his old self. 

“I’m sure,” Andreas says, just as soft. His mom sighs again. 

“Bring him to the house, then,” she says heavily.

-/-

London is a five-some hour drive from Sudbury and Andreas drags his feet a little packing his meager shit together. As a result, they pull into his driveway past sundown, the streetlights glittering off the snow. His mom is standing on the porch tapping her foot and staring with the even, terrifying motherly stare Andreas fears.

“Andreas Athanasiou,” she says as soon as Andreas has stepped out of the car. He winces and tries to smile anyway and then wilts under her stare. 

Tyler climbs out after him and his mom’s stare shifts to him and then- _something_ crackles in the air around them, just for a moment. For a moment, it’s even colder than a winter evening should be. The smell of ocean brine sweeps around them, and for a second he swears his mother’s eyes are silver. 

It passes, and the cold lightens, but the silence remains. 

“You’re a troll,” his mom says at last. It makes the silence even heavier. 

“Half troll,” Tyler corrects after a moment. He sounds alarmingly hesitant. He sounds… he sounds _scared_ , a little bit. “And something from my mom. I don’t know what.” 

Andreas edges closer, enough that their elbows bump. He can barely feel it through their coat but Tyler glances over and smiles, just a little quirk. 

“Hmm,” Andreas's mom says. It’s not the most promising sound, but she turns at last and opens the front door. “Well, I suppose you had better both come in. I have tea.” 

Andreas feels tension fall from his shoulders as soon as he steps in the door. It’s just like it always is, it’s home. It’s not until he glances back and sees the way Tyler’s standing like he’s scared to touch anything that he remembers Tyler probably doesn’t feel nearly as welcome. His mom’s disappeared down the hall in the direction of the kitchen. 

“Here,” he whispers, nudging Tyler with an elbow, and toes his shoes off next to the shoe rack. Tyler follows his lead gratefully. 

The kitchen is dark, lit by the flame under the kettle on the stove and the candle in the middle of the kitchen table. His mom gestures them to sit down, flitting around to grab tea bags and honey. Andreas sits and then, after a second, Tyler sits across from him. He still looks so uncharacteristically nervous, drawn in on himself and quiet. 

“So, Andreas” his mom asks, setting a mug each in front of Tyler and Andreas. She’s looking at him archly. “I’m _very_ curious where you heard about magic. And why you didn’t ask me about it immediately.” 

“You gave me a magic necklace and I nearly punched Tyler through a _wall,_ ” Andreas says. He probably sounds like, maybe a little rudely excited about that still. In his defense it had kind of been the coolest thing to ever happen to him, barring maybe getting drafted. “And then, y’know, it was the season. I got busy.” 

He doesn’t say that he’d been kind of scared of her giving him the exact look she’s giving him right now, down the full length of her aristocratic nose. 

“Too busy to pick up the phone, I see,” she says at last. The sarcastic tone has blades. 

“Shouldn’t’a given me a magic necklace, then,” Andreas grumbles into his mug. She pretends not to hear him. 

“I hadn’t known you’d have a teammate of the kin,” she says, seating herself with majestic grace at the head of the table. “Or I would have been much more reserved with the spell.” 

Tyler takes a sip of tea and then tries to hide a wince, poorly. Andreas nudges him reassuringly under the table. He can feel the heat radiating from his mug and he hasn’t even touched it yet. 

“S’no worries,” Tyler says at last. He sounds just a little bit strangled. “Didn’t do it where anyone else could see, so, y’know. No harm done.” 

“I suppose that’s the best I can ask for,” his mom sighs and sips her tea. Andreas cautiously picks up his mug and deems it cool enough to try a sip. It burns his mouth and he sets the mug gingerly back down. “So, tell me about this problem that Tyler has.” 

“He's allergic to Detroit,” Andreas tells his mom. “Steel towns.”

“I'm not _allergic,_ ” Tyler interrupts to complain. “That's so lame.” 

“The iron sickness, hmm?” Andreas's mom hums. “He's right, that’s not really allergies. More like radiation poisoning, I think. Although I'm not so well versed in trolls.” 

“ _Radiation poisoning,_ ” Andreas says. His voice comes out… very shrill. He clears his throat. “Tyler, you thought playing hockey in _troll Chernobyl_ was a good idea?” 

“Troll Chernobyl would be a dope band name,” Tyler says thoughtfully. 

“ _Tyler,_ ” Andreas manages. He still sounds very shrill. He can feel his mom looking at him and he has no desire at all to meet her eyes. Tyler just rolls his eyes anyway. 

“You already yelled at me about this,” he whines. “I said I was sorry.” 

“I’ll show you sorry,” Andreas mutters and sets his mug down on the table with a thump. 

“I can fix it,” his mom interrupts what promises to be a _rowdy_ argument that would most likely have ended in breaking both mugs and possible bloodshed. It takes the fight right out of Andreas, and across the table Tyler jolts to sit up straighter. “You might not like the conditions. But I can fix it.” 

“Mom,” Andreas begins. 

Because like fuck he’s letting Tyler go back to Detroit without something to fix him. Like fuck he’s letting Tyler go back, when he knows Tyler won’t do a damn thing to stop himself getting sicker and sicker. Like fuck he’ll let Tyler do that, wasting away until- he’s just not gonna let that happen. _Even if_ he has to get in a fight with his mom. 

“Whatever,” Tyler interrupts, leaning across to punch Andreas in the arm. He’s not even looking at Andreas; he’s looking at Andreas's mom and he looks painfully earnest. “You know, whatever you need to do, I get it.”

His mom looks at them and the way she smiles at Tyler is tired and a little wary still but much warmer. She doesn’t say anything for a while but eventually she nods and taps the base of the candle holder once with a fingernail.

The sound reverberates through Andreas somehow. It shivers in his bones like his mom had hit him with a tuning fork. He jumps about a foot off his seat. 

“What the _hell-_ ” he begins. 

“Andreas Athanasiou,” his mom snaps at him. Tyler lets out a loud honk of laughter and then slaps both hands over his mouth, looking scandalized and offended at himself. Andreas scowls and drums his heels on the floor for a second. 

“What the _heck,_ ” he hisses after another second to swallow the string of cusses trying to press out of his mouth, “was _that_.”

His mom looks at him reprovingly despite his efforts to keep himself from swearing. He scowls some more. 

“I put the curative power on you,” she says at last, when she’s decided he’s been sufficiently disapproved of. She sounds like she’s confused as to why he hasn’t already figured out what she did, which, like, _honestly_ mom. It’s not like he knows shit-all about magic. 

“Not on Tyler?” he asks blankly. 

His mom sighs and blows out the candle. It’s still light enough to see a little, with the streetlight through the window, but without the warmth of the candlelight everyone looks a little hollow. His mom gets up to go for the lights. Tyler nudges him under the table, knee to knee. 

He looks over and Tyler smiles at him tiredly. He doesn’t look worried or offended. He just… also doesn’t look very happy. His cheekbones make his face look hollow in the weird shadows. Andreas tries to smile back. 

“It’s precautionary,” his mom says and the lights snap on. Andreas scowls at her some more on principal. She raises her eyebrows right back. “I am your mother, I’m required to worry.” 

She pauses, and looks at Tyler. 

“I think you’re safe for him,” she says at last. “I trust you with him.” 

“Oh,” Tyler says. “Thank you.” 

Andreas looks at him. He’s smiling at Andreas's mom and it looks real. A little wan, a little small, but happy. Andreas stares at it probably too long but Tyler doesn’t notice and when Andreas finally drags his eyes away his mom isn’t looking at him. 

“Keep him safe,” his mom says and points at Tyler. Tyler nods seriously. Andreas scowls and drums his heels on the floor some more. He’s getting kind of tired of them talking around him like he isn’t even there but he guesses he’s happy his mom approves of Tyler now. 

“I will,” Tyler says. It sounds like a promise, and also sounds incredibly corny. Andreas wrinkles his nose and thumps a foot on the ground extra hard. His mom rolls her eyes at him. 

“Stick together within the city limits and the steel should affect Tyler less,” she tells them both. She’s opening the fridge and getting out things for quinoa salad and Andreas sighs because thank god. He’s starving and he has practice tomorrow. “It should get better the longer the magic has to work.” 

A thought occurs to Andreas, watching her slice carrots. 

“What do you mean by _stick together?_ ” he asks slowly. 

“Oh, proximity,” she says cheerfully. “Physical contact would be best.”

-/-

The drive back to Detroit in the morning is somewhat quiet. It’s short at least, and Andreas spends it pretending he doesn’t notice how Tyler keeps glancing at him. Dylan’s going to have a field day when he notices how much more time Andreas spends with Tyler, he realizes dismally.

He pulls up to his apartment building and studiously looks at the air slightly to the left of Tyler’s face. 

“You should stick around,” he says, because his own _whack_ bullshit aside he’s not going to kill Tyler just because he’s kind of a national disaster. “Keep proximity or whatever.” 

Tyler’s grinning at him. He knows it. 

“‘Course,” he says, and follows Andreas up. 

There’s no real packing to undo and microwaving the soup his mom sent with them takes all of two seconds and then they have all the rest of the day until evening practice to, apparently, heal Tyler with the power of Andreas's presence. He looks helplessly around the kitchen, a steaming bowl of soup in each hand. Tyler’s watching him from the island counter, eyebrows raised. 

“So,” he says at last. “Wanna watch some highlights?” 

“Sure,” Andreas says. Might as fucking well. 

“This is fucking stupid,” Tyler decides approximately twenty minutes later. Andreas can’t stop jumping every time Tyler shifts and their arms brush together. They’ve been sort-of-not-really watching the Pens beat the Flames up and down their home ice. “I’m not contagious, c’mere.” 

Andreas does not have time to articulate a protest or scramble away in fear before Tyler has his arm around Andreas's hip and is dragging him right up against his side. Something about the way he did it left Andreas with an arm around his shoulder and with a brief wiggle that traumatizes Andreas for life Tyler’s tucked into his side. 

They’re pretty much the same size and Tyler is sprawling. Andreas wishes for death. 

“Er,” he manages valiantly. Tyler grins at him from way too close to his face. 

“You know you want up on this,” he says and wiggles around in a very uncoordinated way. He’s warm and he smells like shampoo. He looks so pleased with himself and they’re _cuddling_. 

Andreas sort of whites out a little bit. 

“This is great,” Tyler says after Andreas has given up on human speech and resigned himself to slow death by deprivation of blood to his brain due to it all being diverted to his cheeks and dick. Tyler’s face is pressed into Andreas's shoulder and Andreas is doing his absolute level best not to look down, because he’s dead sure he’s not going to be able to handle any of what he’ll see if he does. 

“Uh,” he says intelligently and then shakes himself mentally. “Yeah? Feeling better?” 

Tyler lifts his head a little and Andreas promptly forgets himself and looks down. 

Tyler is not, classically speaking, attractive. This is not an attractive angle to be looking at Tyler. Tyler is objectively looking like even more of a mess than usual, hair a snarled tangle and a hectic, feverish flush in his cheeks. Apparently, that doesn’t matter too much. 

Andreas looks away quickly. 

“Bro,” Tyler says happily, oblivious to Andreas's personal crisis. “My sinuses are clear now!” 

“Nice,” Andreas says miserably.

-/-

It gets to be normal because it can’t be weird and full of Andreas’s stupid _whatever_ all the time. In part because Andreas has excellent emotional health and resilience, _honestly_ , but also because he just really doesn’t have the energy. The Wings are gearing up for an exhausted, beaten-down excuse for a playoffs-push and it leaves them with basically no time at all. Andreas has never been this tired in his life.

Which is to say that lying half on top of Tyler in the evenings they’re at home and watching Food Network because neither of them can handle another second of ESPN coverage is his new normal, and he’s trying not to think about it. 

“It’s like Gordon Ramsey said,” Tyler is saying cheerfully, because they’re watching Food Network but they’re still hockey players. His cheek is smushed against Andreas's shoulder. Their legs are what could easily be described as entangled. “If ya can’t stand the heat, get out of the East Conference.” 

“I feel like that’s not really what he said,” Andreas says sleepily. Tyler puts out heat like a hockey-player-shaped furnace and he’s full of Chipotle and it’s difficult to keep his eyes open, even for Ramsey at full blast. 

“S’what he meant,” Tyler prevaricates. Andreas lets it go on account of being too sleepy to give a shit. 

“I wish the _Wings_ could get out of the East,” he mumbles, letting his eyes slip closed. “Maybe we’d stand a chance in Central again.” 

Tyler gasps, faux-outraged. 

“That’s fuckin’ _wrong_ ,” he murmurs back. “The Wings back in Central? What, is the team getting moved to fucking Wichita?” 

“You don’t even know where Wichita is,” Andreas says. He’s not sure where Wichita is, either. He thinks it’s probably in Kansas. He’s not sure where _Kansas_ is. 

“Nope,” Tyler says comfortably. “Probably in the Central division, though.” 

“I wanna play playoffs hockey someday,” Andreas slurs. He’s most of the way asleep and the fleeting thought passes that he hasn’t bundled Tyler out the door, that he’s definitely falling asleep cuddling him, and it’s probably crossing some kind of line somewhere. It’s very difficult to care. Tyler smells like Irish Spring soap and fajita spices. “I want us to get to the playoffs.” 

“We’re gonna,” Tyler promises, or Andreas thinks he does. He’s awake enough to feel Tyler’s hand on his and then he’s slipping into a dream.

-/-

Beating Pittsburgh probably isn’t quite as satisfying as beating the Avalanche would have been, or beating Chicago really _had_ been, but it’s really up there. It’s really, _really_ up there.

Which is why he probably has no excuse for how he lets Tyler drag him home instead of going out to celebrate. 

He's not going to think about it at all, he decides, and lets himself get shoved around on the couch until Tyler's happy with how he's sitting. He's really not going to think about it, he resolves, and Tyler throws himself into his customary place next to and kind of on top of him. It's just not worth thinking about. 

“How you feeling?” he asks weakly. Tyler's idly flipping through channels. They're probably gonna end up watching Miracle again. 

“Fucking great, bro,” Tyler says brightly. 

_So why are we still doing this,_ Andreas thinks but doesn't say out loud, because he's weak and a dumbass and as much as it kind of sucks he doesn't want to stop cuddling. He can handle the stupid… bullshit. He really can. 

Besides, Tyler really is looking better. His weight is back up, the circles under his eyes are fading away. He hasn't had a nosebleed once. He hasn't thrown up, either. He's napping like normal instead of like a zombie, and when he grins at Andreas it's so much more real than it had been towards the end. 

“S'awesome,” is what he says aloud. 

“I can totally breathe again,” Tyler continues cheerfully. “It's dope.” 

Andreas swallows another lecture about how Tyler should have told him about how sick he was because he is way too young to turn into his mom. Instead he just shuffles Tyler a little bit so his hair stops tickling his nose. 

“Your hair’s getting so long,” he says, spitting out a strand. He’s not happy about it but he’s pretty sure his tone comes out fonder than he means it to. Tyler just laughs at him anyway. 

“You love it,” he says, not sounding at all bothered. Andreas has to acknowledge that he does, in fact, love it. 

“‘Tcha gonna do with it?” he asks idly and tugs on the ends of it, ostensibly to get it out of his face. He’s not sure why he always ends up as whatever the upright cuddling equivalent of the big spoon is, but with how he keeps blushing and making stupid faces, he’s kind of grateful. 

“Man, I don’t do shit with it _now_ ,” Tyler says. He sounds so relaxed. “It just does whatever. Maybe I’ll get a real mullet.” 

“God, please don’t,” Andreas says. He’s abruptly absolutely terrified Tyler’s weird and terrible power over him will remain through seeing him with a classic 80’s mullet. He’s not sure he could respect himself through that. 

“Sounds like a dare,” Tyler says. He’s grinning comfortably. Andreas is pretty sure he doesn’t mean it, but not _one hundred percent_ sure and he sucks in a breath to protest more. Tyler covers his mouth with a hand. “Chill, I won't do it. Don't wanna mess with my good looks.”

Andreas glares at him until he moves his hand. 

“...Dude,” he mutters, because he can't on good conscience argue about Tyler's looks. “Good.”

“Cool,” Tyler says cheerfully. “Wanna watch Miracle?”

-/-

Andreas is not incredibly proud of what he says when he opens the door to find Tyler standing there, hands in his hoodie pockets and a plastic 7/11 bag hanging from an elbow.

“But we're not in Detroit,” is what he says. 

Tyler eyes him. 

“Nooooooo,” he agrees, drawing the word out so Andreas has time to really feel sorry for himself. “I didn't know that was, like, required for us to hang out. I bought veggie straws.” 

“Sorry,” Andreas says and steps aside. Tyler brushes past him into the room, eyeing him the whole way. Andreas takes his time shutting the door and by the time he’s turned back around Tyler’s kicked off his shoes and made himself at home on Andreas's bed. The bag of veggie straws is open and waiting for him. 

“I do wanna hang out with you outside of, y’know, the magic thing,” Tyler says, waving a hand casually at the reference to nearly dying of magical radiation poisoning. “I like you. You’re funny.” 

“Um,” Andreas says and sits down next to Tyler because the alternative is standing there and looking at him, and Andreas just cannot do that. He keeps a sneaky and careful few inches between them. “Thank you, I think.” 

Tyler snorts. 

“Careful,” he says, and his voice sounds weird. “I might start to think we’re friends or something.” 

Andreas jolts to look at him. He’s looking at the TV, hat tipped back too far on his head, munching venomously on a veggie straw. He looks really good, lately. Healthy. Less like he’s wasting away right in front of Andreas. Less desperately sick. It’s a good look for him. 

He’s sitting contained and neat like he never does, elbows tucked in close to his body, legs folded up in a way that looks uncomfortable. He’s very aggressively not looking at Andreas. 

“We’re friends,” Andreas promises and Tyler glances at him out of the corner of his eye. There’s a flicker of something in his expression, almost too quick to catch, and then he’s slouching and sprawling out. His elbow presses against Andreas’. Andreas tries not to notice. 

“Obviously,” Tyler says and rolls his eyes. “Are you gonna put on a movie or something?”

-/-

Andreas isn’t sure where Tyler had gotten his spare key from but he definitely has it now, because he’s getting uncomfortably used to coming home to his apartment and finding Tyler there just… hanging out.

It’s not that often, but Andreas is doing his best to ignore the fact that it’s because they end up going to his or Tyler’s place _together_ most of the time. He’s not going to let something as trivial as objective reality get in the way of maintaining his tenuous relationship with his peace of mind. No matter how often Dylan makes stupid faces at him about it. 

So he’s not all that surprised to kick his door closed behind him and smell something cooking, or to hear Tyler’s voice coming from his kitchen. A little mystified maybe, but he takes his time throwing his bag into the hall closet and kicking off his shoes. 

“Thanks, Mrs. Athanasiou,” Tyler’s saying cheerfully as Andreas rounds the corner into the kitchen and Andreas pulls to a dead stop so fast he nearly falls over. “Yeah, thank you.” 

Tyler’s got his phone cradled between his shoulder and cheek. He’s stirring something in the pot on the stove that smells frankly fucking amazing. There’s jars of shit Andreas kind of recognizes and utensils and little piles of beans all over the counters. 

Andreas gapes at him. Tyler doesn’t appear to have noticed him yet. 

“I feel really great,” Tyler continues, and leaves the spoon in the pot to wander over to the fridge. “Yeah, thank you _so_ much. Means a lot to me that you did that, you got no idea.” 

He turns away with a carton of soy milk in hand and spies Andreas and tries to wave, spending a perilous minute juggling the milk and his phone. He’s grinning very brightly. Andreas stares at him some more. 

“Sorry, Mrs. Athanasiou,” he says to his phone when he’s mostly sorted his own hands out and deposited the milk on the counter next to the stove. “Andreas is here, I think I gotta go. Thanks for the advice!” 

He hangs up. 

“You called my _mom_ ,” Andreas says. He has no idea what his voice is doing. 

“Well,” Tyler says. He’s grinning, so he knows he’s being a shit and he’s doing it on purpose. “I dunno. I texted her and then she called me, so, kind of?” 

“How do you have her number?” Andreas demands. His voice is pitching around like puberty hit him up for a second visit. “What did you even have to talk about?” 

“She gave it to me, dude, dunno what to fuckin’ tell you,” Tyler says and turns away to stir- whatever it is that’s on the stove. Andreas keeps getting distracted by how good it smells and then having to refocus. “I just texted her about vegan chili recipes and then she said it’d be easier to call me. She’s really great, y’know.” 

“Well, yeah, she’s my fucking mom,” Andreas says helplessly. “I know she’s great. What do you need vegan chili recipes for?” 

Tyler looks at him over his shoulder, both eyebrows raised. 

“Dinner, stupid,” he says. 

Yeah, of course. Dinner, stupid.

-/-

Andreas has not grown up a hockey player not to have an extremely competitive nature. He’s not entirely sure what he and Tyler are competing on, and kind of has the feeling it might be a one-sided competition anyway, but he hates to lose and he feels like home-cooked vegan chili from his mom’s recipe might be a winning move.

Which can’t stand. 

They win a game, anyway, which is enough of an excuse to throw a party at this point. It’s easy enough to call in a reservation from the quietest corner of the locker room and then grab Tyler as soon as he’s back in his gameday suit. 

“C’mon,” he says and shoves him towards the door. “Out, before media. We’re getting dinner.” 

Tyler lets himself get shoved along placidly. He’s got a Wings snapback jammed over his wet hair but he’s got a tie on and tied mostly right and his shirt isn’t too rumpled. He actually looks pretty put-together, and as soon as Andreas notices himself having the thought he cuts that right off. 

Tyler looks slightly less placid when they pull up to the restaurant Andreas picked out. He frowns a little, and looks at Andreas with an expression Andreas doesn’t quite know how to read. 

“We won,” Andreas explains, feeling off-balance. Tyler’s expression doesn’t change all that much but he gets out of the car when Andreas does. 

“Guess s’good I didn’t change,” is all he says and then pulls his hat off to shake his hair out just to put it right back on. Andreas sighs through his nose and steers them into the restaurant. It’s not, like, _Michelin star_ good by any means but it’s classier than a Chipotle for sure. Tyler doesn’t relax until they’re sitting down and Andreas kicks him hard under the table. 

“We’ll go back to my place after,” he says in an undertone and grins when Tyler flips him off shamelessly. “Chill out, we just won a game. It’s a celebration.”

-/-

Tyler’s still making weird faces at him after dinner, as they climb into Andreas's car and drive back to his apartment. Tyler doesn’t say anything about it though, just follows him up and shadows him into the kitchen. He’s being weirdly quiet. It’s driving Andreas a little crazy.

“I got some wine,” Andreas says when it becomes deeply apparent that Tyler’s just going to silently watch him hover around until Andreas has a neurotic meltdown. He does, too, although in his defense he hadn’t bought it with this _specifically_ in mind. Drinking it with Tyler, maybe, because drinking with Tyler was fun, but wine after a fancy dinner-

Tyler clears his throat and Andreas pauses in pulling the wine down from on top of his fridge

“Is this a date,” Tyler asks. 

Andreas drops the wine. 

It’s not open yet and when it falls out of his hands it hits the floor harmlessly and doesn’t break. It just rocks on the floorboards, loud in the silence. Andreas can’t look up from it for a long, long moment. He’s lucky it didn’t break, he thinks inanely. He doesn’t know any carpet cleaning services. 

“I,” he manages intelligently and looks up. 

Tyler’s watching him and he doesn’t look at all shocked. He doesn’t even look surprised. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter and he mostly looks- fuck, he looks kind of _happy_. He’s smiling. 

“You knew,” Andreas realizes. 

Tyler shrugs. 

“When did you figure it out?” Andreas demands thoughtlessly. 

He isn’t sure he wants to know, except for how he wants to know so fucking badly. He knows he’s been staring for longer than he really wants to admit. So much stupid shit he's let slip, the stupid _antler_ thing. So many times he must have been so _obvious-_

“When, uh, we were at my parent's house?” Tyler says and shrugs again. “And you hugged me?” 

“ _That_ was the moment?” Andreas asks blankly. 

“Mhm,” Tyler says. He looks, just, infuriatingly chill. Andreas wants to hate him so badly. 

“Out of all the fucking possible moments,” Andreas snaps. He’s like, actually a little upset about this and he doesn’t have the slightest idea why, which is just upsetting him more. “Like, I was _so_ mad at you. _Then?_ ” 

Tyler shoves his hands into his pockets. He doesn’t look all that bothered. He mostly looks incredibly pleased with himself. 

“I dunno, man,” he says comfortably. “I’m slow. Got there eventually.” 

“I kept staring at you,” Andreas says, aghast. “Like, all the time. Did you _miss_ that?” 

“Like, no,” Tyler says, which, humiliating. “But people just do that a lot? So, y'know, I didn't really pay attention to it.” 

“People just do that,” Andreas repeats. He's not sure what his face is doing. It feels like it's doing something embarrassing. 

“Yeah.” Tyler shrugs, apparently totally unbothered. “Figure it's the flow.” 

Andreas stares at him. He's smiling a stupid crooked little smile, hands in his stupid suit pants pockets, stupid _stupid_ hat perched too high on his head. He's just… a lot to deal with. 

“I can't fucking believe you're real,” Andreas manages. Tyler breaks into a full grin, gap-toothed and, ugh. 

“You like me anyway,” he says. He sounds kind of like he’s bragging and Andreas wants to take offence or argue, just on principal, but… it’s not like he’s wrong. Andreas feels his mouth open and close a few times. “Hey, since we’re talking about it now, can I tell my mom you’re my boyfriend?” 

“You haven’t even taken me to dinner yet!” Andreas argues stupidly. He doesn’t even want to _think_ about the boyfriend comment. Tyler makes a considering noise. 

“I paid for your Chipotle a bunch of times,” he points out. Andreas gropes wildly after a response. 

“ _Expensive_ dinner,” he tries, because he’s very sure he definitively was the only one of them that did that even though he kind of really doesn’t want to go out for more expensive dinners. Chipotle burritos are hard to beat. 

“Your extra guac gets pretty fucking expensive, bud,” Tyler advises. He looks increasingly at peace with what’s happening. It’s infuriating. “Plus, I make you dinner sometimes.” 

“You can’t really count the Chipotle thing as dates,” Andreas says weakly. For some reason all he can think about is how he can never, ever, not _ever_ let Dylan know about that. He’d never fucking hear the end of it. 

“I think we've been dating for a while,” Tyler says thoughtfully. “If you really think about it. Just, like, with no kissing yet.”

Andreas tries thinking about kissing for a single second and feels something in his chest creak ominously. He refocuses, winded.

“We've _been_ dating?” he echoes. “Since when!” 

“You have a key to my apartment,” Tyler reminds him and Andreas reaches thoughtlessly down to touch the lump of his keyring in his pocket. 

“That was for security,” he says weakly. 

Tyler looks at him condescendingly. 

“We’ve been cuddling,” he points out. 

“Oh, holy shit,” Andreas realizes. “Oh my god, you let me cuddle you like a pathetic idiot when you _knew_ I was, like-” 

“Into me,” Tyler supplies. He’s grinning like an absolute shithead. He looks so unbearably smug. Andreas kind of wants to punch him and also, like, the kissing thoughts are encroaching again. “You weirdo.” 

“Fuck you,” Andreas says. “Oh my fucking god.” 

They’re holding hands, he discovers. He doesn’t know when that had happened. 

“Hey, you’re not really angry, right?” Tyler asks. He’s biting down on a smile like he’s trying not to let it show. It makes his ridiculous face even more ridiculous. Andreas resigns himself to probably blushing for the rest of his life. 

“No,” he grumbles unwillingly. “Why?” 

“My mom always said not to kiss people when they’re angry,” Tyler says solemnly and kisses him.


End file.
